Newly Appointed Humane Society of Warren Country Executive Director Makes Maiden Speech to Front Royal Rotary Club

Kayla Wines, a 10-year veteran on the staff of the Julia Wagner Animal Shelter in Front Royal and recently appointed executive director of the Humane Society of Warren County (HSWC), made her first public speech from her new position at the Rotary Club of Front Royal’s weekly meeting Friday, January 12.

Wines described how, since 2013, she has “worked her way up the ranks” while simultaneously “putting myself through school” and, among other attributes, she is now a certified veterinary assistant with college courses behind her that taught non-profit management, grant writing, and marketing, a top priority for this and any other similar enterprise.

One of her early and successful objectives has been what she called “our intake diversion project,” which, in plain English, seeks to keep animals in their homes rather than being turned over to the shelter when hard times hit the pet owners.

“Through individual and business donations and grants, we are able to assist pet owners with options other than surrender (animals to the shelter) through our community programs,” Wines said.

Courtesy Photo Kayla Wines addresses FR Rotary on HSWC Wagner Animal Shelter programs and statistics. Below, Wines and friend (Royal Examiner File Photo)

“Hand in Paw” is a fund the HSWC created to keep pets in their homes with families who love them, thus keeping them out of the shelter. “Hand in Paw” covers emergency veterinary bills, basic preventatives, and vaccines, including free rabies and microchip clinics, and provides free pet food and supply pantry for Warren County’s pet owners who need the help and who also want to keep their pets rather than turn them over to the shelter.

“Our ‘Spay it Forward’ program (at the recently established downtown spay/neuter clinic) pays for surgeries for families who otherwise could not afford it,” Wines explained. In 2023, the clinic spayed/neutered 43 animals in Warren County “and kept them with their families versus coming into the shelter,” Wines said.

The new humane society executive went on to explain a trap, neuter, and release (TNR) program aimed at reducing the extraordinarily high feral cat problem in Warren County. Last year, the shelter trapped, neutered, and then released 368 feral cats at a cost of $27,600.

“A very large number,” Wines told her audience, “but without providing this service, that could have amounted to an astronomical number of unwanted kittens being born and more than likely making their way into our shelter over time.”

She posed a question: “Did you know that a pair of (feral) cats and their offspring could turn into 420,000 cats in just seven years!?”

In fact, with the 52-day average length of stay at the shelter, each cat costs an average of $544 per kitten and $484 per adult cat for a total cost of keeping 512 cats and kittens sheltered in 2023 at $263,648.

Wines’ focus on cats in her maiden speech is perhaps natural since she began life at the shelter on the “cat team.”

Describing the Human Society as a non-profit organization dedicated to providing compassionate care to abandoned, abused, neglected, and homeless animals, Wines said, “We hold a contract with Warren County to operate as the county ‘pound.’

“We take anything that is not a wild animal and is a ‘managed intake’ shelter, meaning the shelter operates on an appointment basis. This allows us to better prepare for what is coming in, and the appointment time slot allows us to speak with owners to see if we can avoid intake into the overcrowded shelter system by providing other resources,” Wines said.

During all of last year, the Front Royal shelter accepted 980 animals, including 435 dogs, 512 cats, and 33 others, including hamsters, rabbits, chickens, pigs, goats, birds, turtles, and a bearded dragon!  The shelter ended the year with a 96% save rate, which entitled it to once again describe itself as a “no-kill” shelter, an achievement that Wines appeared proud to be part of.

(The writer is a longtime member of the Rotary Club of Front Royal and a past president of the Humane Society of Warren County. As a retired journalist, he also is a regular contributor to the Royal Examiner.)