PCHS seeks land to quarantine infected dogs

By John Howell
The Panola County Humane Society is seeking help from the city to combat parvo and other contagious diseases that infect dogs at the city’s pound.
“We’re not asking you to give us any money, just space to quarantine them,” PCHS President Margaret Eubanks said, speaking to Batesville’s mayor and aldermen at their First Tuesday meeting. In recent months, PCHS volunteers have encountered cases of mange and parvo in dogs that they foster locally until they can be transported for out-of-state for adoption.
Eubanks asked to lease one acre “that doesn’t interfere with any plans you have.” The pound is located on land east of Batesville that the city recently purchased. It had leased space for its pound at the site for several years before the purchase.
Aldermen voted to table her request for a decision. At the request of Alderman Bill Dugger, aldermen voted unanimously to make a decision in January.
“We don’t want to drag this out,” Dugger said.
Eubanks said that PCHS is raising money to pour a concrete slab on which confinement pens can be placed with metal awnings overhead. She said that getting the dogs off the ground would allow volunteers to scrub areas with bleach solutions to eliminate the canine parvovirus that is spread through an infected animal’s stools.