Doing it Right: Tift County Animal Control in Southern Georgia

Ten years ago, Candice followed her daughter to the Tift County Animal Control Shelter, in southern Georgia, for a summer project photographing dogs to help them get adopted. She had no idea what she’d unleashed.

That summer led to Candice volunteering regularly, which led to forming Friends of Tift County Animal Shelter Facebook page, which led to her friendship with Leah. Together, the two then started Tift Animal Rescue Inc. to pull dogs from the shelter and move them out through transports, saving thousands of lives.

For the last four years, Candice has been the director/ACO for the shelter. “It feels like a day,” she told us. It’s clear she loves her work, and it’s also clear that she is very good at it.

When she first began helping at the shelter, it was a high-volume, high-kill shelter. The shelter was built twenty-five years ago and was designed for holding and euthanizing dogs. It’s a maze of narrow hallways and small rooms, but since taking over, Candice has redesigned the space, painting every possible surface and making great use of every inch.

Now the shelter staff works hard to save lives, still predominantly through rescue connections (they’d love to find more). They have several great rescue partners who take large transports of up to fifty dogs at a time. They trust Candice to send dogs who have been dog-tested, cat-tested, and don’t have apparent behavioral problems. Half of the shelter dogs are heartworm positive, so they are often treated at the shelter before leaving for rescue.

The normal routine we’ve seen is for rescues to handpick the dogs they want to pull, but Candice’s rescue partners trust her judgment and know that if she selects the animals, there’s a better chance of the dogs being successful in their rescue than if they picked them based on pictures and stats.

TCAS is an open intake shelter that takes in about three thousand animals a year, consistently, no matter what they do. To combat those numbers, they’ve set up a small clinic behind the shelter, with help from the BISSELL Pet Foundation, to perform high-volume spay and neuter surgeries. They do 30-40 surgeries a day when they can find a vet to hire.

Most of the animals that are spayed or neutered are from the shelter, but some are community animals. If someone wants to drop off a litter of puppies or kittens, the staff asks where the mama is and schedules her for their clinic.

The shelter utilizes foster homes for about thirty animals at a time. Many are in need of extra medical care or are preparing to leave on a transport. They also have a foster-to-adopt program, enabling them to adopt out kittens who are too young to be spayed or neutered.

Resourcefulness is something we find common among good shelter directors, but Candice is a standout. She found one of their surgery tables discarded in the woods, a crash cart at Goodwill, and an impressive multi-drawer supply cabinet on the side of the road. All were cleaned, refurbished, and put to good use in the shelter and clinic. She partners with not just the Bissell Pet Foundation for spay/neuter assistance and Healing Heartworm grants, but also Fix GA Pets and others to find the resources she needs.

The hallways are lined with beautiful framed portraits of special saves, music plays throughout the shelter, and air purifiers bubble away. There’s a great energy here.

Walking through the adoptable dog kennels, dog after dog pressed themselves against the fence, preferring a scratch or touch of any kind over the treats I was handing out. They were friendly, calm, and thrilled to see us.

One of the first things Candice did when she took over was build a huge play yard behind the shelter. “If you’re going to recruit volunteers, you have to have a place for them.” She recently knocked a hole in the wall of the storage area so that volunteers can reach the playyard directly with the dogs instead of having to walk skittish dogs the entire way around the building to reach it.

Candice would love to add an additional building behind the small clinic so the animals would have a recovery area instead of having to go back to their regular kennels. She’d also like to figure out a way to install air conditioning in the dog kennels so the dogs wouldn’t have to suffer in the oppressive Georgia heat.

Candice still wears two hats – director of the shelter by day and co-director of the rescue by night (often doing the rescue work of dog-testing and preparing animals for transport at the shelter after hours). Tift County is lucky to have a leader as creative and committed as Candice.

If you’d like to support the work they do, consider shopping the shelter’s wishlist: https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/2BPLQ02TVNZGN

They’d especially need items from their neonatal wishlist: https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/38XTUZVEIP4MJ

Until each one has a home,

Cara

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Who Will Let the Dogs Out: Stories and Solutions for Shelters and Rescues was published in January of 2025. It is filled with stories and ideas to help everyone be part of the solution. You can buy a hardback or paperback copy for yourself and/or buy a copy for a shelter or rescue through our website. It is also available on Amazon in paperback and ebook. We are seeking opportunities to present the ideas from the book and facilitate discussions on how we can collaborate to find solutions for our shelters. If you have a dog-hearted group that would like to connect, contact Cara@wwldo.org.

To see our Emmy-nominated, award-winning short documentary, Amber’s Halfway Home, click here.

Did you know we have a podcast? I’m working at getting regular episodes up, including the audio version of the new book, and interviews with shelter heroes we meet. Find the podcast on Spotify and other podcast services.

For more information on any of our projects, to talk about rescue in your neck of the woods, or partner with us, please email cara@WWLDO.org.

For links to everything WWLDO, including volunteer applications, wishlists, and donation options, check out our Linktree.