Animal shelter euthanasia rates reduced but overcrowding crisis looms

8/16/25. Editor’s note: Since this story was published on Friday, Aug. 15, many citizens have contacted The Edge with additional information about animal control and care in the County. The Edge is investigating the many claims. If you would like to contact publisher, Whitney McKnight, with information bout the Animal Shelter in Madison County, please use this message app:

BEREA—County officials are reticent when asked about it, as some of the history is grim. But what the data show now has the markings of a success story. Namely, that in less than two years, the annual number of dogs euthanized at the county animal shelter has gone from 469 to almost none. There have been other improvements at the shelter as well.

“We’ve moved way beyond that,” Madison County Deputy Judge Executive Jill Williams told The Edge in an interview. “We have made so many strides and come so far in so many ways.”

This time last year, multiple County citizens spoke out, some tearfully, about conditions at the shelter during a Fiscal Court meeting. Accusations flew that the shelter had become filthy, that it exhibited a lack of care for the dogs, that dogs were being euthanized at greater rates and without following proper administrative procedures, and that animal control officers were not being dispatched when called, along with several other grievances. There were also demands for an audit of the shelter and transparency about what might be found.

Investigation results

In response, County Judge Executive Reagan Taylor ordered an investigation. At the following Fiscal Court meeting in September 2024, Williams presented the findings of the County’s investigation, after first introducing Maggie Ratliff, then the shelter’s director, to the Fiscal Court and praising her for dedication to the job.

There had been some irregularities with the record keeping, was one finding, Williams told the Court. Another was that the shelter was filthy and so required new cleaning standards and protocols. The shelter’s communication by phone or social media was also found to be subpar, noted Williams, who also said inadequate staffing levels and a lack of welcome toward volunteers were also problematic.

Williams refuted the rest of the accusations and shared performance data across the domains of the shelter’s operation, beginning with euthanasia rates. During the first two months of 2024, 89 dogs had been put down. Ratcliff’s tenure at that point had been five months and by then 153 dogs, including the initial 89, had been euthanized. The annualized rate for 2024 was expected to be 230 dogs euthanized, and Williams noted that those numbers were a downward trend.

Williams next presented a “roadmap to success” for the shelter, beginning with setting and maintaining clearly stated expectations, asking experts for their insights into what was best, building a larger and modern facility, and regularly monitoring the progress at the facility.

Within days, Ratliff—who’d taken the director job in May of that year, three days after graduating with a Bachelor’s degree in animal sciences from Berea College—quit.

New leadership

By October, Lincoln County native, Kristen “Sissy” Slone, was named director.

“I had wanted to be a veterinarian, but along the way I realized I was needed in the shelters, so I got a masters degree in animal shelter medicine,” Slone told The Edge in an interview.

Slone’s first job after graduating from the University of Florida in Gainesville in 2020, she said, was with Austin Pets Alive!, a large animal rescue service in Austin, Tex. Slone eventually returned to Kentucky, working for the animal shelter in Boyle County before landing in Madison County.

After being hired here, Slone took on the necessary changes to the shelter, including hiring enough people with experience in animal welfare to adequately staff the facility. Since Slone came onboard, the County has doubled the number of staff positions at the shelter from 5 to 10. Currently, Slone said there are two openings, one for an animal control officer, and another for a kennel tech.

Slone has also implemented the cleaning strategies identified by the County’s investigation, and has straightened out the record keeping. What Slone said she could not get a handle on at first was the never-ending stream of dogs turning up to be housed in the shelter with its mere 64 kennels.

“The number of dogs was averaging at least 100 a month,” Slone said. “They were coming out of the woodwork.”

‘Drastic’ action

“By the end of December last year, there were so many dogs, it was either take drastic action or a lot of them were going to have to be euthanized,” Slone said.

Being committed to making Madison County’s shelter a “no kill” one, Slone chose “drastic action”.

Dogs’ journeys

She began leveraging relationships she had with out-of-state pet rescue and adoption facilities, asking their help in organizing weekly veterinarian visits, vaccinations, and transport of dozens of dogs to Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, where, she said, “Families line up to adopt the dogs that here, we can hardly get people to come in and take a look at.”

Meanwhile, as these relationships were being explored and committed, Slone said For Paws, the animal day spa in the northern section of the County, near the river, was instrumental in helping avoid the use of euthanasia. “They temporarily housed the dogs that were getting their vaccinations and vet check-ups before they were sent out-of-state,” she said.

Williams told The Edge that the County has used out-of-state shelters before, but that since Slone has come onboard, the number of dogs sent out-of-state has increased “dramatically”.

To date this year, 234 dogs from Madison County have been placed in homes out-of-state. In June alone, 46 dogs were sent north. Last year, 164 dogs were sent out-of-state, while for all of 2023, that number was 250 dogs. These statistics are according to County records.

Slone said the dogs chosen to travel are “bombproof”, able to deal with any situation, and good with children. The dogs that remain here in the shelter have anxiety issues or other conditions that she said, “Require a little more attention, but because we can focus on them, they are very loved.”

It’s an all-expense paid trip for the pooches that travel long distances to their new homes, as the rescue services pay for local vets to vaccinate and examine the dogs, and for the cost of transport, according to Slone. Over this fiscal year, she said the savings to the County for these successful adoptions will have been 93,000 dollars.

“The rescues up north love our Kentucky dogs because they know they will get exactly what they expect from us,” Slone said. “We don’t send any dogs to be adopted that aren’t in good condition.”

Chronic concerns

Williams said that problems at the shelter such as overcrowding and overuse of euthanasia predate the Taylor administration, which began in 2015. The highest number of dogs euthanized at the shelter over the past five years was 469 in 2023, under the director that preceded Ratliff.

Williams said that change has been slow, but that the County is working to ensure euthanasia, “Is not a strategy, but a last resort. This is something that takes time and effort, and it’s a lot of work developing relationships with rescues and all the things to find good homes for the animals.”

Currently, the number of dogs that have been put down this year, according to Williams and Slone, is 10, most of them terminally ill or with an irreparable injury.

“One of them was a dog that attacked me badly,” Slone said. “If they are attacking me, then they will attack a family, and we can’t have that.” Slone said the dog bit her severely in three places on the back of her leg.

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Desperately seeking shelter

Shipping rescued dogs to other states can never entirely solve the issue of overcrowding at the current facility, all interviewed officials agree. They said the solution is to have more space.

More space means a new facility.

The current one is a converted auto mechanic service garage, adapted for use as a shelter around 50 years ago, according to Taylor. He said the County has had preliminary designs drawn for a new shelter, which is estimated to cost about eight million dollars to build, but voter pushback late last summer and into the fall stopped further progress on building the shelter where Taylor thinks it should go.

Taylor told The Edge he would like it to be built on a piece of land the County owns on Hwy 25, next to Clower’s Market, near Richmond. The new shelter would include a repurpose of the former Safety City building already on the property, plus an attachment built onto it, Taylor said.

“But for some reason, people got it in their mind, or was told, that putting the shelter at the Safety City location would cause problems or be a nuisance,” Taylor said.

Some shelter staff members expressed concerns about dogs getting loose from a facility at the busy junction of Hwys 25 and 421, where Taylor proposes the shelter be built, and running into traffic, as does happen on occasion at the current location. Slone, however, said that at this point, “I just want a better facility. I don’t care where it is.”

Wherever it ends up, the facility would have to be much bigger, Taylor said, since as the County continues to grow, so will the number of dogs in the shelter. “We’ll just have to see what happens,” he said.

Generous gift

The late Tony Bennett, a Madison County resident, left about 200,000 dollars as a gift to the shelter upon his passing in 2018.

“If someone is willing to leave an amount like that, you want it to be used for something lasting,” Williams said. “So we put that into an investment account where it is drawing interest. It’s never been touched. It’s the only thing in the account. The goal is to use that money to help off-set the cost of the new shelter.”

The current amount in what Williams called a “government approved investment account managed through Edward Jones” is 245,318 dollars.

Slone agreed saying she’d rather the money be spent on a new facility than use it now on one that is “essentially not salvageable”.

Taylor said the Fiscal Court would be willing to put up some money, but that the cost would require a bond. The issue is less about money, he said, than that there doesn’t seem to be much public demand for a better shelter.

“I don’t get a lot of pressure for it. Nobody is saying, ‘Do this, do this’,” Taylor said.

Rotarians to help

At least one civic group is attempting to create momentum for a new shelter, however.

“We live in a very disconnected society, and pets are often overlooked, but they provide the companionship that a lot of people are not getting in the world right now,” Anthony Hudson, president of the Berea Rotary Club, told The Edge. “So, if we’re not taking care of them, it’s hurting not just people, but animals, too. Those connections are lost yet again.”

Hudson and his fellow Rotarians in Berea have set up an online petition they hope Madison Countians will sign to show support for a new shelter. The petition’s landing page declares, “A new or significantly upgraded shelter is not just a want—it's a necessity for the welfare of our community's animals. Providing a modern facility will allow the shelter to give better care, improve living conditions, and increase adoption rates.”

The page also has photos of many dogs currently available for adoption at the shelter.

The Rotarians also will have a booth in Old Town, Berea, where visitors can sign a hard copy of the petition, during the upcoming Spoonbread Festival in September.

In October, Hudson said the Rotary Club will work with the shelter to host a two-day adoption event at StreamGo Media, also in Old Town, Berea.

Taylor said it’s frustrating that there are so many dogs that need shelter because their previous owners didn’t care for them. “If you can’t take care of a dog, don’t get a dog,” he said.

“These animals they can’t fight for themselves, they have no voice unless we give them one,” Hudson said.

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