The Horry County Humane Society’s animal shelter has reopened to animal control officers after closing Dec. 8 after a deadly Canine Distemper Virus outbreak.
The shelter staff euthanized 117 dogs believed to have been infected with the virus after the closing.
The shelter’s former director, Renee Macklen allowed dozens more dogs to be adopted after receiving confirmation of the virus inside a shelter dog on Nov. 24.
HCHS president Kate Philips said she decided to reopen the shelter to allow animal control officers to pick up strays and bring them to the shelter with freezing weather in the forecast.
On Monday, the board held an unannounced meeting in Conway to discuss protocol to reopen the shelter and the major obstacle the board said in the reopening was the fact that floors inside the kennels needing sealing.
County officials said Monday that the HCHS didn’t submit the work order to have the county maintenance department seal the floors inside the canine kennels.
That was three weeks after the shelter closed and the HCHS board discussed the importance of having the sealing completed before reopening the doors.
Philips said she was not sure what day the work order was turned in to the county, but said the original work order was lost.
“The floors will definitely not be resealed in kennel “B”, but the floors will be resealed in kennel “A” before we reopen,” Philips told News13.
Kennel “B” is the shelter’s quarantine kennel where animal control officer drop offs and dogs without proof of vaccination are housed until they’re evaluated and vaccinated for adoption.
Kennel “A” is where adoption-ready dogs are housed and where the public is allowed to view them.
The shelter’s euthanasia room is in the back of “A” and is sealed off from the dog runs by a concrete wall and steel door.
The shelter’s board said a contributing factor in the distemper outbreak is the concrete kennel floors were in need of resealing.
“We wanted to take the opportunity of an empty kennel situation to have the floors resealed and we didn’t get that,” Philips said.
News13 tried contacting Horry County Public Safety Director Paul Whitten, the county contact for the shelter, but Whitten is out of his office all week.
Philips said the board will continue to pressure the county to allow the shelter to use tax dollars to build a separate intake facility at the shelter.
The board voted in the unannounced meeting Monday to reopen the shelter’s spay-neuter clinic Friday Jan. 2, then pushed that back to Sunday Jan. 4.
The delay came after scheduling conflicts with people who have adopted from the shelter before and during the outbreak, Philips said.
The board said it plans to set a date to reopen the shelter to the public at a special meeting set for Jan. 7 at 6 p.m. at the Chapin Memorial Library located at 14th Avenue North in Myrtle Beach.
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