Each year around 750 dogs and cats are received by the facility, which all have to be processed in and cared for. According to Animal Shelter Director Ryan Brown, who made the case for a new online system during a presentation at Monday's McCracken County Fiscal Court meeting, the new system will make it much easier to care for and keep up with the hundreds of cats and dogs the facility sees each year. "What we're looking at doing is adopting a new data management system which will track every dog and cat that comes through our shelter," Brown said. "It's called Petpoint. This will cover everything from animal control, to the shelter. It will even cover the veterinarian services."
Brown said the service, which has a $750 setup fee and is $1800 per year after that won't just make it easier to keep tabs on the animals at the shelter. He said the company that offers the service can also provide microchips to help locate lost dogs and cats. "If an animal is stray, animal control can scan it and immediately take it back to the owner with a warning. That saves traffic at the shelter, which is fantastic." Brown said.
The company also offers a discount to shelters that microchip their animals. The current adoption fee at the shelter is $50. Brown said this could go up to as much as $60 to offset the additional cost of the service, but that in his opinion the cost would be well worth it. "We're trying to get out of the stone ages right now," Brown said. "Currently we're operating off of clipboards and folders. Our filing system needs to be updated."
The PetPoint system is the same data management tool already being used by the McCracken County Humane Society, as well as the Graves and Marshall County Animal Shelters according to Brown.
