She's a Dog's Best Friend in Seguin, Texas

Fourteen years ago, Margarett Svatek of Seguin, Texas, joined a drive to offer pet adoption services in her hometown, and that was a stroke of luck for the homeless pets in Guadalupe County.

More than a decade of efforts by Svatek and other volunteers finally produced a shelter that has since found new homes for thousands of unwanted dogs and cats.

Her lifelong love of animals caused Svatek in 1987 to respond to a flier inviting people to an organizational meeting of the Guadalupe County Humane Society. She was soon helping write the bylaws and get a nonprofit charter. Then she led the group’s drive to raise money to build an animal shelter.

“I’ve never been afraid to ask for money,” Svatek says. Donations flowed in slowly at first, but Svatek kept asking and working at fund-raising events such as garage sales, rummage sales, raffles, and “Casino Night.”

“That’s our biggest fund-raiser,” Svatek says of Casino Night. Businesses and individuals donate prizes that are then auctioned off to buyers who’ve won their “money” at casino-style games.

Svatek persevered through one fund-raiser after another for nearly 10 years until people began asking how much the Humane Society needed to bank before building the shelter. “It’s always been a struggle and it was a lot of years, but I never did get discouraged,’’ Svatek says. She was determined the shelter would have a building, kennels, and money to operate before it opened.

Kathie Ninneman, a public relations executive and former managing editor of the Gazette-Enterprise, Seguin’s community newspaper, says Svatek refused to give up.

“I’ve never known anybody who is as committed to a cause as she is,’’ Ninneman says. “Other people would come and go, but she never gave up.”

Then a local couple, Alfred and Hortense Mandel, came through on an earlier promise to donate land on the outskirts of Seguin (pop. 22,011). Ground was broken for the shelter in 1996.

“She (Svatek) actually became the contractor on the building,” says Peggy McKanna, Humane Society treasurer. “It was a remarkable effort. When the shelter opened, it was paid for.”

The Guadalupe County Humane Society Shelter opened in June 1997, and McKanna recalls being concerned Svatek was overloading herself as director. “But she just got better and better, and she hasn’t taken a penny of pay.”

In the first three years, the shelter has received 2,184 animals and found new homes for 1,950 of them—an adoption rate of 89 percent. “We’re awfully proud of that,” McKanna says.

People dropping off dogs and cats, as well as those adopting them, are charged fees. But adoption fees go primarily for veterinary services—vaccinations, spaying, and neutering.

“When people come in looking for a dog or a cat, we ask a lot of questions,” Svatek says. “We listen to the people when they tell us what they want, what their situation is at home, what they have in the way of children, and we try to be in tune with that to make a good match. We want that dog or that cat to be a lifetime commitment.”

Bob Thaxton is a freelance writer in Seguin, Texas.

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