www.TheNewBarker.com THE NEW BARKER 43 The Sheriff’s wife, Susan Ann, works for the Eastern Florida State College and is a huge animal advocate. “We adopted two shelter dogs who own our house and sleep in our bed,” said Ivey. As the Sheriff was weighing over whether or not to take on running the shelter, his wife looked at him and said,“I never ask you for anything. But, I’m asking this of you, now. I want you to take over animal services.” “My wife, she’s a beautiful Italian Irish redhead and I live in total fear of her every day of my life,” the Sheriff told us. “No would not have been the right answer.” After taking over, Sheriff Ivey implemented an extreme makeover of the shelter.“Just like the television show.We cleared out the entire shelter, sending all of the animals to a doggie daycare facility. Habitat for Humanity came in.The community really came together - businesses donated their time and material. We worked around the clock.” On the third day, a giant bus uncovered the completed work as the crowd yelled,“Move that bus!” “It’s like theTaj Mahal.My fear now is that stray animals will want to break into the place and stay here. It’s that nice.” In 18 months, the shelter improved their live release rate to 96 percent. The Sheriff attributes the success to having a total buy-in from the top,and unbelievable support from the community. “I have never experienced such support anywhere before.” They also brought in what Sheriff Ivey describes as some of the top people in the business, like Dr. Sarah Boyd. “Then, we listened, and let them do their jobs,”said Ivey. “We also partnered with Target Zero, who helped create new policies and procedures. Once we picked our team, I got out of their way. I ran interference on the naysayers so staff wouldn’t be affected by any negative talk. It was important for me to shield them so that they could stay focused on the difficult task at hand.” The shelter continues to roll out successful programs. Through Operation Take Me Home With You, each adoptive family is given a crate, 30 days worth of food, a collar, leash and a new toy. This is in addition to the pet being micro-chipped, spayed or neutered and brought up to date on all immunization shots. Public awareness campaigns are another important component to the shelter’s continued success. Ivey credits the shelter’s Operations Director, Joe Hellebrand, with the video makeovers, many of them featuring the Sheriff and his staff in the community.The innovative, often funny and creatively-scripted, filmed and edited videos, provide important information and reminders to pet parents. Each week, Sheriff Ivey selects one of the animals from the shelter as the Sheriff’s Pick of the Week.A photo is posted with the animal’s brief bio on the Brevard County Sheriff’s Department social media pages.The Silver Paws Program waives adoption fees for all senior adopters, age 60 or older, on all senior cats and dogs, age six and older. The Paws and Stripes College is the next generation of the Paws & Stripes program of Brevard County, which has been in existence since September 2006.The partnership is between the Sheriff’s office, Space Coast Therapy Dogs and Eastern Florida State College Vet Tech Program. It pairs carefully selected and trained inmates with shelter dogs that are at significant risk of being euthanized. To date, more than 300 dogs have graduated and been saved through the program.The College takes selected canine graduates into an advanced training program to serve the community as service dogs, therapy dogs, and child victim advocate dogs. To accommodate this new and innovative pro- gram, the Sheriff’s Office refurbished a building that was previ- ously abandoned by the Department of Corrections.The facility has been renovated into a world class training facility through the use of inmate welfare funds, inmate labor, and at little cost to the taxpayers of Brevard County. Inmate labor is another resource the Sheriff’s office is able to provide.Thanks to the inmates, a line of ice-cream and sorbét just for dogs, is being produced. “We use the ice-cream as a fun, interactive way for visitors to get to know a dog they’re considering adopting,” said Ivey. “One of the flavors is Orange You Glad You Adopted Me.Inmate labor also created and built a swimming pool just for the dogs at the shelter.“No cost to the taxpayers.We paid for it ourselves with our Sheriff’s Pet Posse program,” said Ivey.The Sheriff’s Pet Posse is a non-profit that supports enrichment programs for animals, staff, volunteers and the public. As far as Sheriff Ivey is concerned,No Kill status is a forever goal, not a one time achievement. “Reaching No Kill is not the hard part. Maintaining it is,” he told us. “Everything we do in law enforcement is controversial.You have to believe in your heart that you can save those who can be saved. I didn't look at this as taking on an added duty.I took it on to add to the community and make a change.” “Our employees and volunteers are the most valuable component to the success of this shelter,” Ivey said. He reminds shelter staff that there are four challenges for each day; the same thing he reminds his deputies. Come to work and have fun.You’ll be successful. Protect our community. Do it more professionally than everyone else. Go home safe at the end of each shift. What does the future hold for Sheriff Ivey? “I’m not going to be sheriff forever.Taking over animal services is just one of my accomplishments. My next goal is to somehow make Florida a No Kill state.” Remember the name:Wayne Ivey.He won’t be hard to miss. Standing by him will be an Italian Irish redheaded beauty who’s impossible to say no to. BrevardSheriff.com The Brevard County Animal Care Center 5100 W. Eau Gallie Blvd., Melbourne, Florida - 321.633.2024 PawsAndStripesCollege@bcso.us Space Coast Therapy Dogs - SpaceCoastTherapyDogs.com Sheriff Ivey and his wife, Susan. Y U