By JOYANNA LOVE/Senior Staff Writer

The Chilton County Humane Society approved a low-cost renovation plan to establish a room for new puppies when they come in during its July 6 meeting.

Having this second room for dogs will allow incoming animals to be quarantined from well animals during treatment.

“We have got to isolate puppies for the first four or five days that they come into the shelter, so that we can treat them before we move them into the general population,” board president Katherine Reece said.

Sick cats could also be kept in this room, if there is not a risk of the dogs catching what the cats had.

The approved plan was recommended by interim director Tonya Terreros as an alternate to an initial idea, which would have required moving a wall.

” Tonya had a brilliant idea,” Reece said.

The plan will move the director’s office to one of the small intake rooms and the director’s office will become the puppy isolation room. Reece said under this plan “we are not paying to do any renovation,” except for paint, adding electricity to one of the rooms and fixing air conditioning concerns.

The shelter is also in need of more puppy cage banks for the intake room. Reece and Board member Kristi Hyche have been working on getting prices. A shelter employee suggested the Humane Society contact one of the nearby county’s animal shelters that recently installed new cage banks and ask if they might be willing to donate the old ones to the Chilton County Humane Society.

A change in employee dress from the Chilton County Humane Society T-shirts to scrubs when the shelter is open to the public was approved unanimously. Hyche proposed employees could still wear casual clothes while cleaning before the shelter opens.

Board members continue to gather invoices and documentation for the shelter’s financial audit. Hyche said she had the invoices from the Alabama Spay/Neuter Clinic. Reece said there was one purchase of $40.40 from 2016 that she could not document and did not know what it was for. She will be getting more information and contacting the company for an invoice.

Also during the meeting, the board approved a sexual harassment policy. The policy defines sexual harassment and the action that will be taken.

“The Humane Society of Chilton County will take appropriate corrective actions against anyone found to be in violation of this policy, including possible termination of employment or removal from the Executive Board,” the policy states.

During the month of June, the Humane Society took in 321 animals. There were 29 animals adopted, 130 went to rescues and 75 were euthanized. Reece said the higher euthanasia rate last month was due to a number of sick cats coming to the shelter.