We Are Moving!! Back

   P4P will not renew the contract with the City of Collinsville to run the Warren Billhartz Animal Shelter.  The building was shared with the Citys' 2 full time animal control officers.The contract is up July 31. It will go back to being an animal control facility.  Hopefully, the City will allow us to continue to pull animals from there to help keep their euthanasia rate down.  We will be moving all the animals currently under the care of P4P to the old shelter.  Fortunately, we had never stopped using the original shelter and the transition should be pretty smooth.  We will continue to do adoptions at Petsmart on the weekends.  The spay/neuter clinic will need to find a new home. There are several options.
   This move is NOT due to financial reasons. While we were at WBAS the euthanasia rate went from 67% to less than 4%. P4P opened a low cost spay/neuter clinic which was performing 50-70 surgeries per week.  All the animals, including animal control, were cared for by P4P.  All of this was done at no cost to the City. It is really a shame the building built by Mr. Billhartz to help the animals find new homes will not be used for that purpose. 
   So then, why the move?  The arranged marriage between the police department, animal control and P4P did not work.  We were never welcome in the building by the City staff and it was taking a toll on the staff, volunteers, animals and adopters.  So the decision was made to leave to concentrate on what we do best.  Help the animals. 
   The letter to terminate the contract was sent to City officials almost three weeks ago. We were not contacted by the City until today.  Even then, no one from the City asked why we were leaving. Only if we could leave before the 31st.  No doubt, we made the right decision.