Amy Cooper, the new director of Sonoma County Animal Care and Control is getting to know her new job and county, but when she goes home at night, what she doesn’t have is her pets to keep her company.
Cooper has been living at the Doubletree since coming on board three weeks ago. Her husband lives in San Jose, to where she commutes on the weekends and will so until she can find a pet friendly rental. “I know. It’s kind of ironic,” admits Cooper, who is in the business of finding homes for homeless animals. She has the animals, just no home, yet.
Cooper’s plight is not an unusual one. All one has to do is look over the housing ads in the area and quite often the N/S/P is listed. No smoking or pets. Sigh.
The humane educators at Sonoma County shelters, who operate the summer camps for kids, say one of the reasons they have kids lining up is the lack of a pet owning experience in their homes. The lack of pet friendly rentals is cited.
Cooper has two small dogs and two cats, a respectable number of animals given her line of work. To hold her over, she has taken to bringing shelter dogs into her office during the day to give them a break from the kennels and her a “pet fix.”
It’s disheartening to on the one hand, have so many animals waiting for homes and people wanting to adopt and restrictions that make that impossible.
Amy Cooper, Raisin, Rudy, Nutmeg and Annie are waiting.
