BRADENTON – After years of working out of a re-purposed closet, veterinarians with Manatee County have all the space in the world in their new medical facility.
12 years ago, the grand opening of the Bishop Animal Shelter – now owned by Manatee County – wouldn’t have been a thing. The Bishop family originally built the shelter in the 1950s in spite of Manatee County’s animal services.
“They didn’t like the way we treated animals in Manatee County back in those days,” says Manatee County Commissioner Carol Whitmore, “and we were just [picking] up the animals and unfortunately [euthanizing] them.”
In 2011, that changed. As Whitmore said during her speech in front of the grand opening crowd,
“We have stepped up to the plate. We’ve committed to our no-kill. It took 200 citizens to go in the chambers of Manatee County to push for no kill.”
With Manatee County being the first county in the state to designate itself as a no-kill, Whitmore says about five years ago, Bishop’s Board approached the county commission. After some initial plans fell through, the Bishop family created this new facility, and then gifted it to the county.
“There’s a tremendous medical facility inside this building that we have lacked since forever,” says Kevin Van Ostenbridge, chair of the Manatee County Commission.
The old shelter’s medical facility was tiny — a repurposed closet. Now, you can actually move around the place.
“It’ll save us a huge amount of money for animal care. We’ve been using vets outside, you know third party, emergency vets, that sort of thing, and now we can do all of this stuff in house,” Van Ostenbridge says.
The shelter features a play area for the dogs, individual quiet rooms for animals that need to be by themselves, and a room dedicated to dogs with parvo so the disease doesn’t spread to others. SNN went into a room where cats who were victims in a recent hoarding situation are taken care of.
“They have the capability, the passion, and the desire to do the right thing. And now we have a facility that’ll allow them to do that,” says executive director of the Humane Society of Manatee County, Rick Yocum.
It’s all to help animals go to that better place – their forever home.
“It’s not their fault they were thrown to the side of the road,” says Whitmore.
Bishop Animal Shelter is located where the old one was — 5718 21st Avenue West in Bradenton.
