Outside the Abita Brew Pub in the heart of Abita Springs about 10 cats dart in and around customers’ feet on the patio, waiting for any small morsel to drop to the floor. The small colony, originally born from two strays dropped at the eatery, are still people shy, often poking their heads out of the restaurant’s wooden utility shed looking at passerbys.

“They’ve been here for years,” one bartender said. “We don’t know where they come from, but we unofficially adopted them. Everyone seems to like them.”

The scene is just one of several throughout St. Tammany where Parish President Kevin Davis and parish animal authorities are working to curb the stray cat and dog population.

Stray cats like these are turned over the parish animal shelter in alarming rates, authorities said. (Staff Photo by Matthew Penix)

While it’s hard to pinpoint the exact number of stray animals roaming the parish, authorities said statistics indicate a grave concern. Last year, the St. Tammany Parish Animal Shelter accepted 6,299 animals, more than 3,000 of which where euthanized because they were too sick or bad tempered to be adopted.

“We euthanize for space,” Melisa Sullivan-Piwetz, interim director of the St. Tammany Parish Animal Shelter, said. “When you have 6,000 animals coming in a year, we have no choice. It’s the hardest part of the job.”

While euthanasia rates dipped 4 percent this quarter, St. Tammany still puts to sleep roughly five out of 10 animals dropped off at its door. Last year the rate was roughly 70 to 80 percent, but statistics were reconfigured to include only those animals healthy enough to be adopted, resulting in the 52 percent kill rate.

“If we cut in half the animals dropped off at the shelter, that would just about stop the euthanasia rate,” said Suzanne Parsons Stymiest, the parish’s spokeswoman who’s adopted at least one dog from the shelter.

But parish officials can’t do it alone, they said.

“These animals are more than just something you can cuddle when they are cute and abandon when they are old,” said Sullivan-Piwetz. “This is a community problem, and we need community help.”

Animal officials are doing what they can, she said. St. Tammany government will open a new, $1.8 million animal shelter with 80 kennels this summer. To coincide with the opening, authorities are launching a campaign to curb the stray animal population.

Education classes on spay and neutering are already held at area elementary schools. And soon, a 24-foot long animal trailer housing 38 to 43 animals will start touring the parish in hopes of finding owners to adopt. The rest, authorities said, is up to the public.

“It is really up to us as citizens to step up and accept the responsibility of caring properly for our pets,” Davis said, adding the problem is largely unknown to parish residents. “Long term, this is the best way to prevent unwanted animal euthanasia. While the rates are decreasing in St. Tammany, the only way to truly make a difference is if we all work together.”

Jane Whittaker agrees.

Whittaker, of Mandeville, recently stuck her finger inside a metal gate at the shelter off Louisiana Highway 26 near Abita Springs and giggled as Max, a 3-month-old German Shepherd, nibbled and licked her fingers.

She had toured the facility for several minutes, stopping to look at nearly all the 150 animals housed there. Cats pawed through the metal gates at her fingers. Other dogs howled until she reached in to pet them. Whittaker wanted to take all home, she said.

“I hate the fact that they put these animals to sleep,” she said. “I would take them all if I could.”

Whittaker’s 12-year-old deaf Dalmatian recently died. She was looking for another pet for her and her husband.

“It’s not about the money,” she said. “It about these poor dogs that are here by no means of their own.”

Often, animals are dropped off because people are moving and the pets can’t be brought along, Sullivan-Piwetz said. Other times residents will call to have a litter hiding under their house removed, often the result of a failure to spay or neuter their pets, but rarely admitted. Last year, 37 dogs were dropped off in a two-hour period, Sullivan-Piwetz said. And less than 20 minutes into a recent tour of the facility, two mixed Labradors were dropped at the door.

“It happens all the time,” she said while animal control officers carted the animals off to bathe, spay, neuter and implant a microchip that allows owners to track dogs when lost.

Typically, a veterinarian would charge $200 to $500 for those services. But when adopted at St. Tammany Parish Animal Shelter, would-be owners pay $65 for dogs and $40 for cats already equipped with such measures.

For those who already own a pet not spayed, neutered or microchipped, the Animal Shelter offers vouchers if owners collect Social Security, Medicaid or food stamps.

That news nearly sealed the deal for Whittaker, torn between Max, the German Shepherd/Labrador mix, and another Labrador mutt.

“I want to bring them both home,” Whittaker said, filling out adoption paperwork. “But my husband wouldn’t let me.”

She then winked.

“But watch me. I’ll be back to get the other one,” she said.