It’ll be at least a week, maybe longer, before the animals return to the Dessin Animal Shelter. “Until the insurance adjuster comes here and we know exactly what it’s going to take, we don’t know,” said Shelter Manager Sue Frisch. “We still have no power, so we have no phone, we have no water. We go down town to go to the bathroom,” she said Thursday afternoon.
Thursday’s goal was to get a generator so the shelter’s computer could get back up and running. “We need to access health records. Because our animals that are in foster care are in need of vaccinations or wormings and whatever. So, we need to know,” she said. “So, that might make things a little easier.”
Following Tuesday’s fire, all of the dogs and cats were placed in foster care. Though they’d originally planned to keep the cats in the shelter’s front room, the lingering smoke and lack of electricity made them uncomfortable with that idea. That’s when the community came forward, with all 50 to 60 felines placed in foster care by Tuesday night. A nearby neighbor took four cages worth or 14 cats. Frisch says even a Seelyville Fire Fighter on scene took two dogs. 
Asked what good has come out of the bad, Frisch said, “The community ...The thing that just keeps standing out in my mind is that we live in a phenomenal community. I don’t know if it’s like this everywhere you go.”
Frisch says schools and churches have called, asking what they can do, and the Seelyville Fire Department has offered the use of their building should the shelter want to hold a fundraiser.
$2,000 donated so far
A clean-up crew, sent by the insurance company, had cleared away the burned debris from beside the main building, Thursday. “They’re getting rid of everything that’s not salvageable. So, that’s step one.” As to how big of a loss they’ve suffered, Frisch said they don’t have a dollar amount yet. What they do know is that the community is there for them. Frisch says so far, they’ve received over $2,000 in monetary donations. And the calls to help keep coming; they have a list 100 people long offering to foster, help with clean up, fundraising and more. Frisch says calls are currently being routed to Cats Pajamas, below CVS in Honesdale, at 647-0057. Though food offers are generous, Frisch says they have nowhere to store it and they currently don’t have animals to feed. Frisch says gift cards or monetary donations will allow them to buy what they need when they need it.
“Really what we need is a new building. That’s what I think we need,” Frisch said. She says they needed a new building before the fire hit. She says they’ve outgrown the 40-year-old building. “It’s carried us this far and it’s cinderblock. And the fact that it’s cinderblock saved us, because if this was a completely wooden building, I think it would have just gone, all the way to the ground.”    
Harvest & Heritage Days
Look for some of the shelter animals to be available this weekend at Honesdale’s Harvest and Heritage Days. The animals would love nothing more than to be someone’s devoted pet. With that in mind, Frisch says adoptions are still a top priority.
Asked if there were any happy endings, if any of the foster families had fallen in love with the animals in their care, Frisch said, “Not yet. But, again, we haven’t had contact. I’m suspecting that that’s going to happen. That somebody’s going to say, ‘Oh, they can stay. We can’t send them back to the shelter now.’ I hope so. I hope so,” she said.