Sharon Sagety is a modern day St. Francis.
She runs a no-kill shelter in McDowell County, West Virginia, on hope, prayer and precious little else. Her volunteer pool is comprised of work-release inmates from the local penitentiary. A former operating room nurse, Sharon has the medical expertise to ensure the health of the 75 dogs and 40 cats onsite. But survival is a daily battle.
Sharon Sagety
McDowell County is one of the poorest counties in the nation and we traveled there on a mission trip with teenagers from St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In addition to home repair and food bank work, we assisted Sharon.
Shelter volunteers experience both joy and futility; and the idealism of our suburban teens was immediately dashed. We turned down the steep gravel drive to witness inmates burying the remains of a dog who had been dumped barely alive the night before and had not survived until morning. Our little group of do-gooders was shaken to the core.
If that didn’t unnerve them, then the stench from the overnight soil did. The teens dug in, covering their faces with bandanas against the smell. They cleaned pens and the cat sun porch – a wire-enclosed playground with scratching posts and hidey-holes – and assembled new, sturdier kennels. They bleached rooms where litters of unvaccinated pups were kept safely isolated from other animals. They spent days grooming two cocker spaniels – friendly little creatures whose coats had grown so matted and snarled they could barely move. Finally, they made a point of playing with every animal.
Although Sharon participates in pet-finder websites and sends dogs to the prison for socialization training (a program that benefits animals and inmates alike), for many of these animals, the shelter will be their permanent home.
The love and attention they get from Sharon, her handful of volunteers, the prisoners and groups like ours is the only love and attention they will ever know.
They will not be adopted, not because they aren’t wonderful animals capable of years of companionship, but because the population in McDowell County doesn’t have the resources to provide for them.
The end of our week of work was bittersweet. Unlike other mission groups who had something concrete to show for their efforts – renovated homes and new shelving at the food bank – we did not. We cleaned kennels that would again become befouled; we assembled pens that would soon be at double-occupancy; we cuddled dogs that would still break into a hopeful frenzy of futile barking every time a car pulled down the driveway.
What sustained us was the ability to find joy in the moment and the absolute knowledge that every moment spent with the animals was a good one. When we took little leaping Dolly the dachshund for a walk, it was a good day for Dolly. When we cuddled cats, scratched dogs’ ears and bellies, and brushed fur until it shone, every moment was real and miraculous and beautiful.
It was hard to leave, knowing the plight of the animals. We promised to return. We promised to tell about the work that Sharon accomplishes on a miniscule budget. And – best of all – we brought home a new friend: Barney, a lemon beagle who likes to sing. Perhaps next year we will find a new friend to come home with us? Perhaps animal lovers will be moved to contribute to the McDowell County Humane Society?
The shelter is located at Box 714, Welch WV, 24801 and Sharon and the animals would welcome the support.