Lately, there have been more empty kennels at the City of Mexico Animal Shelter than usual.

On Jan. 1, Tana Phillips founded MID MO Animal Rescue Coalition, which she hopes will keep animals out of shelters and off euthanasia lists, in rural, central Missouri counties.

In December, Phillips organized the rescue and adoption of nine dogs at the City of Mexico Animal Shelter while working a full-time job and caring for her family. Her recent success, which she attributes to community support and the help of her friend Tessah Shaw, inspired her to found the passion project.

“I’m a bit of an animal lover,” Phillips said.

MID MO Animal Rescue Coalition

MID MO ARC is not a rescue — it is a resource

It serves Audrain, Callaway, Montgomery, Randolph, Macon, Warren and rural Boone counties, with Phillips at the helm facilitating the rescue, relocation and adoption of in-need, at-risk animals in shelters.

“If someone needs help, I’m going to try to get them where they need to go, but as far as me actually going and looking for things to get involved in, I try to stay within those very rural communities that don’t have as many resources.”

Phillips helps local organizations gain exposure through social media and helps with financing for veterinary assistance.

“My biggest purpose is to help network the animals — getting them in front of the right people (and) reaching out to specific contacts that I know,” she said.

Before founding MID MO ARC, Phillips was a volunteer with the Audrain Humane Society and worked as an administrator for Pet Pals. While on maternity leave in November, she helped out her former Pet Pals director Tammy Gibbons by using photos of the shelter animals to make eye-catching graphics for social media.

But that was a small taste of what was to come in December.

Nine dogs were shutting down and failing in the shelter, Phillips said. Some of them also had behavioral or medical issues that made them harder to adopt out.

“They just were not holding up here and it was cruel to keep them here,” she added.

Those animals, Phillips said, were on “the list.”

Mexico’s animal shelter, like many rural shelters, is required to have at least one open kennel in order to safely quarantine an animal when needed, Animal Control Officer Jeffrey Williams said. And with so many animals overwhelming the system, sometimes, the difficult decision to place animals on a euthanasia list must be made.

“No one wants to have to make that call,” Williams said, adding that just because an animal winds up on the list, does not mean it will be euthanized immediately. The animals are only at-risk if adequate space in the shelter is not made

Phillips treated “the list” like a call to action and in December, she spent mere hours at the shelter getting video footage and photos of all of the dogs on the list. She had until the end of the month to make enough room in the shelter and her social media posts went viral. One post, Phillips said, had over 700 shares.

By the last week of December, all of the dogs found new homes.

“It was a pretty exciting month,” Phillips said.

Realizing the power of her connections and social media, she founded MID MO ARC.

Montgomery County

Animals have always been Phillips’ passion, and she got her start at a young age watching her mother bring home animals that needed help.

“I was very much raised as a ‘call to action’ type person,” she said. “I have to attribute that to my mom.”

Phillips is a Wellsville native who moved to Mexico with her husband.

She had worked with the Pet Pals program for roughly a year when she heard about a need in Montgomery County and decided to shift her focus back home.

According to Phillips, the situation at the Montgomery County Animal Shelter is touchy. Staff at the county shelter is limited, there is only one animal control officer and it does not facilitate public adoptions.

“The animals are taken there if they are found as strays,” Phillips said.

And if the animal is not claimed, they are taken to a contracted animal facility in Middletown.

Phillips met with the city manager and the local animal control officer about starting a rescue program in Montgomery County, and she was given the green light.

“They pretty much said, ‘Go in, do whatever you want, we’re good with it. We’ll pay for the building — everything else is your responsibility,’” she said.

And for almost four months, Phillips kept it going, but soon, the same staffing issues that plagued the shelter she was trying to help began to affect her too — there weren’t enough volunteers to cover all of the shifts.

“I had to make the decision to say, ‘If we’re not operating 100% for the sake of the animals, then this just isn't working,’” she said. “Unfortunately, the city wasn’t able to provide any kind of funds to hire a shelter attendant, so that kind of fizzled out and there wasn’t really much I could do.”

So Phillips continued personally taking animals from the shelter whenever they needed it and tried to “network them out,” which she now does under the MID MO Animal Rescue Coalition name.

The future of MID MO ARC

In the first week of founding MID MO Animal Rescue Coalition, Phillips was able to save seven more dogs.

“I’m kind of hoping to keep that momentum up,” she said.

Phillips added that she hopes that the rural counties that MID MO ARC serves will soon be able to work together to keep shelter numbers manageable.

Her vision for MID MO ARC includes a representative from each county spearheading rescue and networking operations like she has done in Audrain County but on a much larger scale. Currently, she is seeking animal transport volunteers.

To learn more about MID MO ARC and animals in need, volunteer as a driver or get connected with resources, visit the MID MO Animal Rescue Coalition Facebook page or email rescuenetwork65265@gmail.com.