When Julie Dreyfuss moved to La Plata County 20 years ago, a thunderclap sent her German shepherd-Akita mix, named Boon Doggle, scurrying through the streets of her Turtle Lake neighborhood northwest of Durango.
La Plata County Animal Protection was able to find Boon, capture him and keep him safe until Dreyfuss could pick him up.
Since then, Dreyfuss has been a loyal customer and supporter of the La Plata County Humane Society, which oversees Animal Protection services.
More recently, Dreyfuss went from being a customer and supporter to overseeing the nonprofit as its new executive director.
“It’s kind of my dream job,” Dreyfuss said. “It’s even better than I thought it was going to be. The people are amazing, the animals are amazing and the community is amazing.”
Dreyfuss is no stranger to the nonprofit world. Before joining the Humane Society, she was the president and CEO of Community Connections, a nonprofit that serves children and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities across Southwest Colorado.
The Humane Society has been without a full-time executive director for two or three years – when the pandemic turned things a “little bit crazy,” Dreyfuss said. Tricia Simpson, a board member, stepped in to fill the role of interim executive director in 2023.
First on Dreyfuss’ list of priorities is to help the Humane Society handle the “pandemic pet boom,” she said. When the pandemic hit in early 2020, many residents were spending more time at home and realized they had the ability and desire to care for a pet.
Since then, some new pet owners have returned to in-person work and realized they no longer have the ability to care for a pet, so they are returning animals to the Humane Society, she said. At the same time, fewer people are adopting pets because those who were thinking about it already did so during the pandemic, she said.
Other people are struggling with the cost of living in La Plata County. They are coming to the difficult realization that they can no longer afford to feed or care for their pets, Dreyfuss said.
If all that weren’t enough, some residents got into the pet breeding business during the pandemic, believing it would be a good way to make extra money. But some of those breeders are finding it difficult to sell their puppies and have been dropping off litters of puppies at the Humane Society, she said.
The La Plata County Humane Society had almost 50 puppies as of Tuesday.
“Across the nation, lots more animals are coming through all the shelters,” Dreyfuss said. “So I'm just reading the tea leaves and trying to prepare for that and what that's going to mean for us.”
The Humane society deals with about 3,000 animals per year, and the average length of stay is 28 days per animal. If possible, Dreyfuss would like to shorten that time length.
The Humane Society has a maximum capacity of 86 dogs, but as of last week it had about 100 dogs, Dreyfuss said. The agency is relying on foster parents to help care for the overflow of animals, she said.
“We need people to come and adopt dogs,” she said.
Abandoned dogs must undergo a number of evaluations and medical exams before they can be adopted. They receive physical exams, vaccinations, microchips, are spayed or neutered and undergo behavioral training.
“It's just this incredibly robust system that's happening behind the scenes that most people don't even know about,” Dreyfuss said. “I hope this year we can adopt more animals than we've ever adopted before, because we need to.”
shane@durangoherald.com
