A message from our director

As I enter my second year of being the Director of HSWC, I must reflect on what an honor it is to get to spend my days making a difference in the lives of our Wicomico County animals. I truly think I am the luckiest girl in the world to have this opportunity. My immense love of animals led me through the Humane Society doors more than 4 years ago. Who would have thought volunteering for this organization would have brought me to place I am today? I already had a respect for the staff who truly pour their hearts into these animals but was not pleased with the relationship we had with the community or the Live Release Rate for the animals in our care. As a volunteer I had little to say about the daily operations. In my heart, I wanted more for this place, and I knew we could be more.

My first job was to tackle the financials and bring our books to an accurate and transparent place. The community has my word that every cent donated will go to benefit our animals and their wellbeing. We began to look at ways that we could bring a Live Release Rate up to “No Kill” status. Since we are an open intake shelter, we do not have the ability to turn away an animal. We changed our euthanasia policy immediately. We do not euthanize for space or any reason other than animals that are aggressive and cannot be safely adopted, or illness we cannot treat and guarantee quality of life. With these policies in place our Live Release Rate is a yearly average of 85%. Many months we reach the 90% mark.

Since feral cats were a big part of animals that were euthanized, we began to build a strong relationship with some of the Feral Cat organizations. While we can adopt some feral cats out to be barn cats, the cat organizations have a much better chance of placing them into safe colonies to live out their lives. They also assist us in trapping in problem areas.

Our shelter now has an amazing foster program and we implemented foster to adopt into our daily operations. For us it is not about how many animals we adopt, it is about how many we adopt to the right homes. Any animal is not a perfect match for every family. It is ALWAYS about doing right for each animal.

My goal is to make the community proud and to provide them with great programs that benefit their furry friends. Our low-cost spay and neuter clinic as well as our rabies clinics, provide the community with much needed help. We are currently preforming 50+ surgeries a week. We have a food pantry to help our community feed their pets. One of my favorite things to do is visit our schools and educate our little ones on how to care for or introduce themselves to a new animal.

I invite everyone to come out and visit our facility, be a volunteer or donate. You never know where that will lead you. Our staff and furry friends look forward to meeting you. We appreciate your support!

Kim Nock, Executive Director of the Humane Society of Wicomico County and Head of Animal Control