Story and photos by Aimee Pierce
The Anderson Humane Society had already been closed for 15 minutes when Josh Crager opened the door at 3:45 p.m., but Donna Callahan welcomed him with a smile.
Crager was coming in to pick up a chihuahua Hazel Nut, to foster the dog in hopes of adopting.
Hazel Nut was one of 13 dogs dropped off at the Anderson Humane Society by the granddaughter of a home hoarder who had around 25 dogs, never letting them leave the apartment. Before coming to Anderson Humane Society, Hazel Nut had never been socialized with people outside the home.
When Anderson Humane Society Co-Founder Donna Callahan was around 20 years old, Anderson County, Kentucky, had no animal facility.
There was no shelter for the animals picked up by animal control. If animals were not picked up by the end of the week, they would be shot dead.
“And that was the mentality back then…it’s just an animal, and they killed him,” Callahan said.
Callahan grew up in a family that loved animals, so that thought was sickening.
Forty-five years ago, Callahan went to the County Fiscal Court wanting to create an animal facility, but for years the county would not cooperate or help fund a building.
When Callahan was appointed the animal control officer for the county, she was just given a concrete pad and a fence, with the first cat cages made from chicken wire.
“Of course, that wasn’t going to be sufficient,” Callahan said. “So I took half of my dad’s barn and divided it up and made dog kennels out of it, and that’s where I kept the dogs until we got the building built.”
The Anderson Humane Society has been running ever since and has been independent of animal control since 2015.
The amount of animals brought in each year has dropped from 1,000 to 500 due to spaying and neutering initiatives in the past 25 to 30 years.
“I would like for it to be a day when, you know, we just don’t have animals to adopt out. That would be the ideal goal,” Callahan said. “But until then, we’ll just keep trying to keep them healthy, trying to get them homes and stop the overpopulation.