 "Photo: Kara Miller | Contributor")
 "Photo: Kara Miller | Contributor")
 "Photo: Kara Miller | Contributor")
 "Photo: Kara Miller | Contributor")
 "Photo: Kara Miller | Contributor")
Jan Selder, manager of the East Valley Animal Care Center is a hard working animal lover with one of the toughest jobs you can imagine.
Selder is an Animal Control Captain who worked her way up the ranks from her beginnings as an Animal Control Officer. She and her colleagues at the shelter are charged with the monumental task of caring for the valley's homeless animals.
East Valley shelter is subject to LA City's rules of having to take in any animal, no matter what type or in what condition a person brings in. This, although necessary to community safety, places a burden on the shelter's resources. The shelter has a capacity of about 152 dogs and 100 cats and this burden is seen in the 8-15 animals a week that must be euthanized at East Valley shelter due to overcrowding.
LA Animal Services is dedicated to eventually making the city a "no-kill" community for animals. "To us, no-kill means no euthanizing animals that are adoptable. All the cities are working towards that," explains Selder. Weekly Hart Team meetings are conducted by Selder to determine which animals are most at risk. The team exhausts all options to save an animal, including mobile adoption events, transfers to other shelters, and the New Hope program, which gives rescue groups adoption fee discounts.
On her daily walk-through of the facility, Selder takes inventory and assesses the needs of her shelter. As she walks into a veterinary exam room, she looks inside a cardboard box and picks up a kitten that is barely a week old. Its eyes are crusted shut and she explains that, sadly, this litter of kittens will most likely be euthanized because they are too sick to be treated. Sad occurrences like this are all too common during Selders' walk-through of the shelter. During the summer, the staff will have to deal with around 50 kittens a week in these same circumstances.
In addition to their ongoing struggle for resources, the economy is impacting the shelter as well. "In this economy, we are seeing people very hesitant to adopt and are dropping off animals in much higher numbers," says Selder.
As she walks by the shelters' clinic, she notices the staff tending to the wounds of a Pit Bull that was picked up after having been in a fight with another dog. Pit Bulls and Chihuahuas are the most common dog at the shelter. The average Pit Bull has about a 50/50 chance of being adopted or euthanized.
As Selder walks through the dog kennel, she takes Ulysses, a Pit Bull out for a walk in the shelter's grassy play area. His glee is clearly visible as the white and brown dog bounds into the yard. Ulysses looks ecstatic to be able to sniff and play in the grass.
The tireless work that Captain Selder and her colleagues do on behalf of the animals is clearly visible at East Valley Animal Care Center. Even though many of the animals here are living through sad circumstances, most of them will go on to find a home with families whose lives they will enrich in immeasurable ways. Because of caring people like Selder, the shelter's goal of becoming a no-kill facility is finally visible on the horizon.
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