Lack Of Money Reason For Incomplete Animal Shelter

A shelter for abused animals is sitting empty. The reason? No money to finish building it.

The shelter is going up on Cottonwood and Griggs in Las Cruces, and will be run by Dona Ana County as a place for abused animals in criminal cases like dogfighting and hoarding.

Currently those animals go to the Mesilla Valley Animal Services Center. That center’s overcrowding is the reason why construction started on the new facility.

However, Animal Control needs $200,000 to finish construction. Officials say the sour economy just caught up with them.

“The economy and the way that it’s turned out for the state, the way that the budget works out for the county over the last couple of years, everybody is in a money crunch; it just didn’t all come together,” said Curtis Childress, supervisor for the Dona Ana County Sheriff’s Office Animal Control.

If and when the shelter is completed, it will have room for 22 kennels. That’s enough for about 65 animals, if they are able to share.

But some animals such as dogs trained to fight need to be kept alone.