After decades of caring for police holds — dogs impounded from their owners for being a public nuisance or as a result of abuse or neglect — the White River Humane Society (WRHS) has ended its contract with the Lawrence County Sheriff’s Office. The Dog Club of Mitchell will now board all dogs on police hold for up to 20 days.
In 2024, Lawrence County paid the WRHS a lump sum of $53,000 to take in all the stray dogs and cats and police holds. In 2025, the County’s budget for animal welfare has shrunk to $45,000. Sheriff Greg Day said that $30,000 will be allocated toward the WRHS for stray dogs and $15,000 toward the Dog Club for police holds.
Under the new contract, the WRHS will charge $380 per stray dog instead of accepting a lump sum payment. The county’s 2025 budget can pay for 79 stray dogs versus the 130 stray dogs taken in by the WRHS in 2024.
The WRHS will not accept feral cats, only stray, domesticated cats.
For the WRHS, the previous financial arrangement was unsustainable. According to a post on its website titled What is happening with Animal Welfare in our community?, prior to 2025, the Humane Society accepted all stray dogs and cats from Lawrence County, City of Bedford, City of Mitchell and the Town of Oolitic for a flat fee.
“The volume of animals coming in (over 1,000 collectively per year) was running us into the ground in comparison to the contract revenue we were provided,” the post said. “Over 75% of our shelter population originated from government animal control drop offs, but less than 25% of our expenses were being covered by the collective contract revenue from all four jurisdictions.”
Police holds posed an exceptional challenge. Because of the law, the WRHS could not spay/neuter these dogs or prepare them for adoption until court proceedings had concluded. The dogs could end up staying at the shelter for 30, 60 days or longer with no clear timeline as to when they could be released back to their owners or put up for adoption, according to Debbie Stailey, a WRHS board member. Except for one lump sum payment from the county, the WRHS had been left to deal with the police holds for as long as it must.
“We were flooded,” said Paralee Daggy, another board member. During cats’ breeding season, the shelter had to tell animal control to stop bringing them in. There were “crates on the floor, crates on the hallway, kittens in the office area, kittens and cats everywhere,” Daggy added.
Dog Club owner Mary George disagreed. “It’s about the animal, period.” She went on, “the point of having an animal shelter is to take care of the animals in the community, and your police holds are some of the ones that are in the most dire need.”
George opened the Dog Club in 1998. She takes care of the dogs 7 days a week. The shelter sits behind her house. All of her kids are 4-legged, she said.
George charges the county $25 per night per single dog, $40 per night per mommy dog and puppies. Though her contract with the county allows a maximum stay of 20 days, she is prepared to keep the dogs longer if needed. She also signed a contract with the City of Bedford for stray dogs on Jan. 1. Her contracts do not include stray cats.
The Dog Club can hold between 70 to 80 dogs. George plans to convert her garage into another dog holding area to accommodate the additional police holds. Jamie Wires, a part-time employee, and another volunteer helped George with taking care of the dogs and upkeep, respectively.
The WRHS has one full-time manager and 11 part-timers, not counting volunteers. All its board members are volunteers.
For its decisions, the WRHS finds itself in the crosshairs of public ire, an outcome that has left its board and employees frustrated and defensive.
“We — the Humane Society, government officials, and many other citizens — ‘aren’t the ones creating the problem,’” the Humane Society post stated. “We need the community in general, to STOP letting animals run at large, to STOP letting pets have litter after litter and expecting someone else to pay for it. It’s too much and we are doing the best we can.”
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