A dog keeps on the alert in the yard area in front of the animal shelter (background) in Blue Earth. The small shed has room for three dogs, four cats.

Their kennels are full, and so are their hands.

The Faribault County Humane Society has paved the way for 856 pet adoptions since 2008, continually steering stray animals to foster homes as a result of its efforts.

But the strain of a volunteer shortage and the constraints of Blue Earth’s animal shelter have also, in some ways, left the society on somewhat of a short leash.

The shelter, owned by the city and located near the Blue Earth Waste Water Treatment Facility on North Grant Street, contains six cat cages and three dog kennels. Its single-room tin structure, in the style of a spacious storage shed, has seen tweaks of improvement the installation of air conditioning, for example over the years. Yet it remains a tight facility for the type of operation the society seeks to uphold.

“We have the three kennels,”?said Deb Johnson, a coordinating volunteer for the humane society. “But they serve all of Faribault County except for Wells. It’s not uncommon for dogs to be brought in (when) we’re already full.”

Faribault County Humane Society president Staci Thompson holds one of the cats currently housed at the animal shelter in Blue Earth.

Those same kennels, Johnson added, have “literally been pieced and patched together”?to endure year after year and dog after dog of use.

A filled-out shelter means plenty of work to care for each of the animals, too. While the city owns the building, it is the responsibility of the society to handle day-to-day maintenance, whether that means restocking food, replacing or washing bedding and, of course, devoting time to the cats and dogs being housed there.

“You can’t be inside cleaning and outside watching the dogs at the same time,”?Johnson said.

That is why, regardless of the shelter size, the society’s most pressing concern is a lack of volunteer assistance.

Local veterinarians chip in when needed, regional companies offer food donations and local stores like Walmart and Blue Earth Locker provide bones for dogs to chew on. But the society’s lack of manpower is still obvious.

“Coordinating over 100 adoptions per year is phenomenal when you think about it,”?Johnson said, “because we have between five and 10 total volunteers.”

About half of those volunteers are what Johnson would consider “core”?contributors, and those include Staci Thompson, the society president who once planned to resign this year in order to balance her duties as the head of Martin and Faribault counties’ Habitat for Humanity.

To expect such a select group of volunteers to maintain the society’s pace of animal support, then, is something Johnson and her colleagues are hesitant to do.

“That’s where we really need help,” she said. “Everything we do is volunteer, and we try to have volunteers go down three times a day to let the animals out, give them food, change their bedding. And for some of us, like me, living 18 miles away, it’s quite a drive.”

Distance is a potential drawback for volunteers outside of Blue Earth, but the society’s expansive territory is also a highlight. Not only does it bring more animals to new homes, or at least temporary safety, but it also exemplifies an ongoing partnership between the society and cities across the county.

Nearly three years ago, the humane society found itself at odds with Blue Earth, particularly the City Council, on everything from shelter oversight to the effectiveness of the society’s work in general.

But city administrator Tim Ibisch, in collaboration with councilmen, law enforcement and other officials from surrounding towns, said a joint powers agreement with the humane society has helped regulate the relationship between those providing animal services in the county.

“We jointly pay an animal control officer (Dorothy Sunquist), who is through the humane society,”?Ibisch said, “and they control the officer we’ve contracted for this part of the county.”

Wells, as Johnson alluded to, contracts its own animal control officer with Mapleton, while the rest of Faribault County works together with Blue Earth’s shelter serving as the society’s unofficial “transition facility”?for captured animals.

And outside of one-time concerns by the city of Winnebago over the officer’s response time, Ibisch said the position has been one of the focal points of the animal services partnership.

It is not, however, the only shared aspect of the society-county connection. In fact, it is not even the preferred first point of contact for picking up stray animals.

“The first person you should call is the police,”?Ibisch said. “Each of those cities Blue Earth, Winnebago, Elmore is really the first place you should call, and then animal control will pick up the animal and transport it to the pound.”

The police-first plan was implemented not only to help the humane society better capture animals but to cut down on the society charging the collaborating cities for unsuccessful trips by the control officer.

“We get a bill from the humane society for X, Y and Z number of calls,”?Ibisch said. “People would call the officer directly and they’d drive out and wouldn’t be able to find the animal, and we were still getting charged for a call.”

Now, though, thanks to continued reminders that police should be contacted first, the partnering cities can lean on the humane society for the rest of the process housing the animals, caring for them and then, ultimately, pursuing new homes for them.

An animal control board, which includes contributions from Ibisch, Johnson, county sheriff Michael Gormley, Blue Earth police chief Tom Fletcher, Winnebago city administrator Chris Ziegler and police chief Eric Olson and Elmore mayor Carla Prokop, helps review the animal services and set a budget for the entire operation.

“We’ve done some improvements over the last year,”?Ibisch said, “but it’s not a huge revenue source, so we do what we have to do to keep it going, and part of the problem is just not having those volunteers.”

The humane society knows its work is noticed, though.

“Many people come from the Cities because our adoption fees $50 for cats, $150 for dogs are much lower,”?Johnson said, “and we pay to have them vaccinated and spayed or neutered … and we check references and remind people to keep their pets up to date on shots, getting a city license and putting ID tags on.”

Even as it seeks those much-needed volunteers, too, the society has its eyes on taking further improvements into its own hands.

President Staci Thompson said that, in an ideal world, the animal shelter would be replaced with an entirely new facility.

“We’d love to have a place people can actually come to,”?she said, “and unfortunately, the way it is now makes it kind of unseen and not thought about. But we do our best to make it work, and we’ve brought it a long way.”

Building new kennels inside the shelter would be important, Johnson added, and there is just enough room to add one. A more prominent goal, however, is to install additional fencing around the outside of the building a barrier that would give animals more space and also keep kids who play in nearby fields away from the animals. That, Johnson estimated, would cost about $1,000, and the society is prepared to seek donations for all the materials and labor for such an improvement.

And, at the end of the day, with those hopeful upgrades on the horizon and a steady relationship with the county helping offset a shorthanded staff of volunteers, the humane society is, at the very least, thankful it can still uphold its mission serving and caring for the area’s animals.

“If it weren’t for the humane society,”?Johnson said, “after five days, a stray animal can legally be put down. And where we’ve got them, feeding them and watching them, is a lot better than where they could be.”