The new Chilton County Humane Society director hopes to use her experiences working with animals to help improve the shelter.

“I know I cannot save the world, but I am going to try to save every healthy animal that I can,” said new Humane Society Director Kimberly Ruck. “My goal is to improve the overall health of the shelter, deal with the overcrowding issues and raise awareness within the community so we can all have a shelter we are proud of.”

Ruck was hired as the new director in early May, replacing former director Mandy Reiter, and completed her third week at the shelter on Friday.

After previously working as a veterinary technician for the last 10 years for Dr. Vickie Honeycutt, Ruck was familiar with the shelter and wanted to help out in any way she could.

“I have always had a passion for animals,” Ruck said. “Animals have always been my life, and it takes a special person to go in there and do what has to be done. You just feel like you can always do more to help so that is why I am down there.”

One goal Ruck hopes to accomplish is bringing awareness to the community on the importance of spaying and neutering animals.

“I came on board at the shelter when we are in full fledged puppy and kitten season,” Ruck said. “I can’t stress enough the importance for people to spay and neuter their animals. It is so important for everyone to be aware of that because if we don’t spay and neuter our animals, then we are continuing to ignore the overcrowding problem we have at the shelter.”

Ruck said one area individuals can help out is volunteering to be a “foster parent” for a few weeks to help with animals from the shelter being sent to rescue organizations across the country.

“Currently, we have such a wonderful network of rescue organizations willing to take our animals,” Ruck said. “The problem is, we don’t have enough people willing to be fosters so it really hurts how many animals we can send to the rescue organizations.”

A requirement for an animal to be considered for rescue is all animals transported to various organizations must be outside of a shelter for two weeks to ensure the dogs don’t come down with diseases.

This often poses a problem with the rescue system due to a lack of individuals willing to foster animals in their homes during the “quarantine” period.

Ruck said she hopes to build the network of individuals willing to foster to a larger number to help provide new homes for animals at the shelter.

“We could potentially have about 100 animals each month being sent to rescue organizations if we had our foster base up,” Ruck said.

Since her time on the job, Ruck said she has enjoyed getting to see employees and volunteers working as a team to make the shelter a success.

“I have seen such a great response from the community stepping up to help,” Ruck said. “We have so many people who are willing to come and make sure we have things we need, and it has been really great to see.”

Ruck said there are always things the shelter is in need of in the area of supplies including bleach, dog food, puppy food, Dawn dish detergent, laundry detergent, paper towels, toilet paper, garbage bags (regular and contractor size bags), old newspapers and monetary donations.

On June 26, the Humane Society will have a booth set up at the Peach Jam, and on June 27 the Chilton Cruisers will hold their annual car show during the Peach Festival with the proceeds of the benefit going to the Humane Society.

Ruck said the shelter also holds monthly meetings on the first Thursday of each month at the Chilton-Clanton Public Library.

The next meeting will be June 4 at 6 p.m. at the library.

“I really hope to get our community involved and invite anyone interested in learning more about the shelter to come to a meeting,” Ruck said. “If someone has ideas or suggestions or even constructive criticism, we want to hear it.”

For more information about the shelter, visit the Chilton County Humane Society Facebook page or on Facebook at Friends of Chilton Animals or call (205) 755-9170.