An Ironton area woman wants to find homes for as many dogs and cats from the county animal shelter as she can and is looking to the Internet to help her cause.

Cyndi Anderson brought her idea to the county commission’s Tuesday work session where she met with the commissioners and county dog warden Bill Click.

“We have a good advocate here, someone who cares about the animals, and a compassionate dog warden,” Les Boggs, commission president told the group. “If we can start a program where if one dog could get adopted to a good family, that would be good.”

Anderson wants to develop a web site, possibly as a Facebook page, showing photos of animals currently at the shelter that would be available for adoption.

Currently there are 28 runs at the shelter where even with doubling up animals, the number of dogs that can be brought in a week can exceed the amount of space where they could be housed, Click said. Sometimes up to 90 dogs a week are taken in at the shelter. That forces the number of euthansias the shelter often performs each week.

Of the reasons for the increased population is because owners do not have their animals spayed or neutered. Every animal adopted from the shelter is given a certificate for a free spay or neuter. Funding for this comes in part from donations from the local Moose Lodge.

“All the publicity that would bring in (traffic), I’d eat that up,” Click said. “The dogs who have never had a home these are the ones that I have to put to sleep. It will wake you up at night.”

The idea of finding foster homes for those at the shelter was brought up during the meeting. However, Click said he tried using foster homes in the past with limited success.

“I had to threaten to file cruelty charges,” he said about the care from one of the foster homes.

Click sought certification as a euthanasia technician to stop selling the unwanted animals for medical research.

“I stopped animal research in this county,” he said.

However euthanasia can take an emotional toll on those having to perform it, Click said.

“You take a puppy wiggling its tail at you and you have to put it to sleep,” he said.

Anderson is working on this project with her daughter, Kaelyn, a Rock Hill High School student, and son, Kody, a Ohio University Southern student.

“If we start this, maybe in a few months we don’t have to put down (as many),” Anderson said.

Boggs asked Anderson and Click to work out the details of the project.