New Animal Shelter Director Looks to Make Slight Changes

The new Cookeville Putnam County Animal Shelter director looks to make some slight tweaks as she settles into her new role.

Jennifer Hutchinson-Tracy says the shelter will be more visible thanks to the opening of PetSmart at the Shoppes at Eagle Point.

“The last shelter I was at, PetSmart was an incredibly important partnership for me and it serves a lot of different purposes,” Hutchinson-Tracy says. “It created awareness of the shelter by getting it out into a retail environment. So a lot of people that didn’t even know there was a shelter in town will find out that there is.”

Hutchinson-Tracy says having the events at PetSmart allows people unable to visit the shelter to see animals in a different environment.

“It’s just a great way to get out in the public, see and meet people, recruit volunteers, talk about the good things that we’re doing, and hopefully engage the community more than they already are,” Hutchinson-Tracy says.

Outside of public events, Hutchinson-Tracy says most of the changes being made at the shelter will likely be internal.

“A lot of it will be operational stuff that the public will probably won’t even notice, just to kind of streamline operations and make the most of what is a very limited staff,” Hutchinson-Tracy says. “That’s probably not going to be obvious to most of the public.”

Hutchinson-Tracy says she was impressed by the employees and volunteers at the shelter when she joined the team.

“Everybody has been very open to my suggestions and giving me a lot of feedback, that’s very helpful, in determining what might need tweaked down the road,” Hutchinson-Tracy says. “It’s a very supportive, very caring staff and group of volunteers that I’m excited to work with.”

Hutchinson-Tracy says she has plans for additional programs through the shelter in the near future.