Pasco County officials have a new way of keeping up with the busy workload at its animal shelters.
Inmates are helping out at the packed shelters.
The dogs at Pasco County Animal Services can get a little stir crazy when caged up all day, but when they’re outside it’s all play.
Like many county animal services around the country, Pasco County is at capacity, with not enough hands to keep up with the work.
"Right now, they are lucky if they all get walked once a day," said Andrea Cieswluk, a Pasco County Animal Services employee.
To help with the work, the county decided to hire a deputy to supervise five inmates while they clean the cages. The inmates aren't paid, but they get one day off their sentence for every 40 hours of work. The extra work will free up employees to spend time with the animals.
"The more interaction that they have with people, the more adoptable they are. They're socialized more," said Cieswluk.
The county isn’t only hoping for more adoptions, it’s also hoping to keep cutting down on the number of dogs it euthanizes.
“Having the inmate workers here to free up the staff, to work more with the animals, it is just going to continue to make (the number of dogs euthanized) lower,” said Mike Shumate, manager of Animal Services.
With more than 76 dog kennels to clean a day, taking about 15 minutes each, it takes some 19 additional hours a day to work on the real goal: finding the animals homes.
The county uses inmates for other kinds of cheap labor, such as working on its farm and garden. It saves the county thousands of dollars a year.