On January 13, 2010 the Ritchie County Humane Society in Harrisville, WV had one of their buildings burn down in the early morning. They lost 50 cats (which was all of their cats) and 13 dogs, mostly puppies, in the fire. Along with the animals they lost most of their supplies such as cages, vaccines and cleaning supplies. This is a tragedy on its own but I feel it’s particularly bad because the women who run this humane society do so much work for so little.

The RCHS consists of 3 trailers on a small lot that isn’t much bigger than most people’s yard. They get very little money from the state and rely almost entirely on the generosity of the public. My mother and I became familiar with the RCHS when we found a puppy on Petfinder that was there. Since our first visit last winter we’ve adopted 2 dogs and 1 cat and I spent the summer fostering 2 litters of kittens which was a total of 17 cats. I’m sorry to say that two of my fosters were still at the humane society and perished in the fire.

Since the fire my mother and I have gone into overdrive with our volunteer efforts. We’ve transported donations from our local humane society to the RCHS (we live about 40 minutes away). We’ve also donated money to their building fund and asked our friends and family to do the same. I’m hoping that we can turn this tragic event into something wonderful by raising enough money to build a shelter that is much better suited to the care of animals.

I hope this message will raise awareness not only of the plight of RCHS but of animal shelters everywhere that struggle to care for and love their animals on a daily basis. I’m providing a link to their website where you can read more about the fire, see profiles on their remaining dogs and the animals they lost (Pumpkin and Spock were my babies). They also have information about ways to help with donations of food, supplies or money via Paypal. http://www.petfinder.com/shelters/WV22.html

Thanks to Alana Holdren