Walker County Animal Shelter, Chickamauga, Ga 30707 has no website for information about pets, events, shelter-timings, offsite adoptions etc., and has no pets listed on Petfinder. The new shelter’s capacity is for about 100 dogs and 50 cats - and not one pet listed. How could they ever get adopted with no exposure on the net.. they just die in Walker County Animal Shelter.

Alison Smith is the Shelter Director, since summer of 2006. She has been accused of  being hateful to rescuers of the animals, not caring for the medical care or welfare of the pets in the shelter, not feeding the pets properly, turning a blind eye to the cruel killing of pets by ACOs and the extremely high kill-rate of the shelter ( 90 % ) 

She states in this interview on Jan 12, 2007 that 9 out of 10 animals are killed at the Animal Shelter. She said she hopes to improve upon Walker County’s volunteer input, which she estimated to be currently about 100 hours per month. ( Tompkins shelter logs 1000 volunteer hours per month.. so you can see that a lot more volunteer help would have to be encouraged by this director to help the unfortunate pets at this shelter )

The link for the above interview is here:

http://www.walkermessenger.com/view/full_story/3342135/article-Walker-County-Animal-Shelter-director-says-shelter--community-share-burden-of-controlling-animal-%7C-Local-new?

On Nov 21, 2007 Walker County officials and animal rescue advocates heated and emotionally charged public forum.

Commissioner Heiskell defended the shelter and its director, Alison Smith, whom she had advised not to attend the forum. “I did not want to see her come and get beat up,” Heiskell said.

Heiskell said she wants to encourage an open, working relationship with the organization. She has agreed to meet with Guy Bilyeu from the Humane Education Society in Chattanooga, as well as organizations such as the Catoosa County Animal Shelter, to help shape new ordinances and policies for the Walker County shelter.

Walker County resident Donna Dravland, a volunteer at the Chattanooga Humane Society and a private animal rescuer, said she has on three occasions witnessed dogs that are given inadequate food and care. She said Alison Smith has been unwilling to work with the rescue groups.

Dravland questioned how the dogs could stay alive, because they were thin and underfed.

David Espy, a former caretaker at the Walker County Animal Shelter, claimed to have witnessed animal control officers take hammers to the animals’ heads and slam them to the floor.

Heiskell then showed the large amount of hate mail she and Smith have received from various members of animal rescue groups. 

“It is hard to work with animal rights people with all this hate mail,” Heiskell said.

Heiskell said she asked the Georgia Bureau of Investigations explore the matter because the accusations against the Walker employees were so severe.

The link for the above forum is here:

http://www.walkermessenger.com/view/full_story/3343060/article-Animal-shelter-showdown--Heated-forum-ends-in-spirit-of-cooperatio-%7C-Local-new?

This happened in November 2007. Now this is September 2013 and there is still no website for the Walker County Animal Shelter - and no listing of any pet for adoption anywhere.. and Alison Smith is still the Shelter Director.

We request Alison Smith be replaced with a No-Kill compassionate Director  - someone who would do the right things for getting the shelter-pets lots of exposure, get lots of loving volunteers and rescuers to help the pets, off-site adoption events, fund-raise for the shelter improvement and incorporate the No kill Equation for the safety and welfare of Walker County Animal shelter - please, let this happen now.