Dog warden seeks expansion

By Peter H. Milliken

milliken@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

Matt Ditchey, the Mahoning County dog warden, wants to make the dog pound friendlier for dogs and for the people he hopes will adopt them.

Ditchey, who became dog warden in May, hopes ground can be broken next spring for a $715,000 expansion of the pound that will give dogs room to roam and people more room to get to know the animals.

“The current situation for some of the big dogs is like putting a human in a phone booth” because of the cages now used to confine dogs, Ditchey said.

“The dogs often can’t stand up or even turn around,” he said. “It’s tough to adopt out a dog that’s just stuffed in a cage like that, and that’s what we’re working to improve,” he added.

After the expansion is completed, dogs would have 55 spacious individual indoor and outdoor runs, he said. Each enclosure would be 31/2 to 4 feet wide, 14 feet long and 6 feet high, with a cover on top. Half the length would be indoors and half outdoors.

“The new situation would be like putting a person in the lobby of a building,” Ditchey said of the planned expansion of the pound at 589 Industrial Road on the West Side.

“Because the dogs will be in better conditions, they’ll be happier. They’re more adoptable, so the public will come in more, and adoptions will go up” after the expansion, he predicted.

“We do recognize we need to have some additional space out there, and, thankfully, we do have additional space on the grounds for some of this work to be done. It’s just a matter of getting it started,” said John A. McNally IV, chairman of the county commissioners.

McNally said the commissioners met with Ditchey and the architects about two months ago “to go over very rough plans.”

The commissioners have focused much of their recent attention on major improvements at Oakhill Renaissance Place and restoration of the county courthouse, McNally noted.

Plans for a pound addition were conceived under the previous dog warden, Dave Nelson, who now is a deputy dog warden. Ditchey expanded upon those plans.

The pound, which admits about 100 dogs a month, can now house 45 to 60 dogs, depending on their size, and typically houses 50 to 55, Ditchey said.

“With the current cage system, it’s just difficult to keep a dog in there for a long time because if the dog doesn’t get exercise, the dog goes stir crazy,” Ditchey said.

The main function of 20 to 25 regular volunteers is to walk the dogs, but volunteers also drive dogs to adoption sites and help the six-member paid staff clean the pound.

“The walking of the dogs is the biggest thing because it keeps the dogs from going insane,” Ditchey said, adding that more volunteers are needed to perform that function.

Olsavsky-Jaminet Architects has made “a rough architectural drawing” of the planned expansion, and Ditchey said he hopes to see final drawings soon.

“I would like to snap my fingers and have it done immediately, but that’s not how things work,” he said of the planned expansion. “We’ll get it done as quick as we can,” he added.

The first hurdle is funding the project, he said, adding that he hopes to pay for the expansion through a combination of dog license and adoption fees, private donations and grants that could come from the state or federal governments or from animal welfare organizations.

Ditchey, who is a lawyer, said he hopes a tax-exempt, nonprofit Friends of the Pound organization can be created by year’s end to accept donations.

“We will be looking at all sources other than the general fund for this. We have other needs for the general fund money,” McNally said. The general fund is the county’s main operating fund.

Among the features of the expansion, which will go on the north and south sides of the 1970s-vintage pound, will be a new service-counter area to facilitate dog adoptions and dog-license purchases, a conference room; a handicapped-accessible restroom; an isolation room for dogs that may be ill; a euthanasia room; storage space; a dog-bathing area; a separate area for mother dogs and their puppies; and two enclosed outdoor play areas for the dogs.

The pound will have another dog adopt-a-thon from noon to 4 p.m. Oct. 15, Ditchey said. Fifteen dogs were adopted at the pound’s July 30 adopt-a-thon.