HARRISON COUNTY, Ind — A southern Indiana animal shelter is working to quickly disinfect and dry out after raw sewage water from its septic tanks flooded the dog kennels Tuesday.
"One of the staff members got here this morning about 7:45 and I was at home getting ready to head into work and he called me and said the kennels are flooded, there's water everywhere," April Breeden said.
Breeden is the current director of the Harrison Co. Animal Control in Corydon, Ind. She said the shelter recently had septic work done, so they knew the flooding was related to that. Breeden said the shelter's dogs were standing in three to four inches of raw sewage water.
"They were pretty stressed out. We got them out of the kennels one at a time, took them out back, gave everyone a bath, brought them back in, put them in their dry kennels with their towels and everybody kind of relaxed after that," Breeden said.
"When a situation like that happens, animals often don't know how to respond to that due to the fact that they can't flee and they can't really fight it either," Megan Decker said.
Decker, the media coordinator for the Kentucky Humane Society, said they wanted to step up and help once they heard what happened at the Harrison Co. shelter.
"The Kentucky Humane Society saw what space we had available for these animals and quickly got together and got our van out here as quickly as we could to come pull some of their animals from them," Decker said. "They're definitely shaken up so we're hoping to get them back to the KY Humane Society, get them settled in their cages with some warm blankets, some fresh bedding, and let them know they're safe."
More than a dozen of the dogs were relocated by the KY Humane Society and the Southern Indiana Animal Rescue.
"They won't come back here at all. This will be a fresh start for them so they're going to be leaving Harrison Co. forever and they'll be coming to Louisville," Decker said. "Then we're going to put them up for adoption."
Breeden said the shelter is thankful for all of the community support.
"Our community really comes together for us. We really appreciate it," Breeden said. "We've gotten a lot of support form the community. Lucas Oil brought in crates for us because we didn't have enough so we just really appreciate our community stepping up in our time of need."
The shelter will be closed Wednesday, Oct. 30 to finish disinfecting the kennels.
"Today's just been a little hiccup in our journey, but we're okay with it and we're getting through," Breeden said. "Tomorrow morning we'll just be back to normal business as far as it goes for the dogs that are left here."
Here's how you can help. The shelter is asking for adoptions or you can sponsor adoption fees for the animals to find homes more quickly. Donations can be mailed to the Harrison County Animal Shelter or by stopping in.
The shelter's address is 3132 Hope Lane NW, Corydon, IN.
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