Youngwood animal shelter, anxious canine benefit from Eagle Scout project

Rhyann craves attention.

When left by herself, she has taken out her frustration on office doors and chairs.

The 10-year-old pit mix has been a resident for about two years at the Youngwood shelter of Animal Friends of Westmoreland. Because of her severe separation anxiety, she has been through a brief, failed adoption and could become a permanent fixture at the nonprofit.

“She’s become our mascot,” according to Kelli Brisbane, the organization’s executive director. “She loves people, and she’s one of the favorites of our volunteers.”

But, “If she’s left alone, she likes to redecorate. She has chewed apart a door and frame.”

To protect both Rhyann and the Animal Friends office, Mt. Pleasant Township teen Caleb Kovach recently installed protective fiberglass-reinforced panels on the lower portions of the wooden shelter doors as a deterrent to chewing.

“It’s the same material everybody used in their showers,” said Kovach, 17, whose family operates an alpaca farm. “I use it on some of my animal enclosures.”

It’s one of several improvements Kovach has undertaken at the shelter as part of an Eagle Scout project. He’s been volunteering with Animal Friends for six years and recently joined the staff of its farm animal sanctuary in Unity.

“There are always a million and one things that can be done both here at the shelter and at our sanctuary, so when Caleb came to me to discuss this project, it was an immediate yes,” Brisbane said. “He’s focused on taking care of things that Rhyann has taken care of.”

Overseeing a crew of about 15 assistants, including family, friends and fellow members of South Greensburg Boy Scout Troop 405, Kovach also has replaced an interior door, repainted scratched doors and a stained exterior wall, and removed water-damaged plaster in a stairwell.

The project would have cost about $700, Kovach said, but more than $400 worth of materials were donated. A fund drive for his effort netted close to $500, with any excess amount to be spent on other needs at the shelter.

Kovach’s work at Animal Friends fits in well with his own affinity for a variety of animals. In addition to four alpacas, the non-human residents on his family’s farm include a dog and a group of barn cats. Kovach also is raising seven pet ducks and hopes to add some goats.

“I’ve worked with farm animals all my life, and I’m still learning now that I’m at the sanctuary,” Kovach said. “The two goats at the animal sanctuary have inspired me to have goats of my own.”

Unlike pets at the Animal Friends shelter, animals at the sanctuary aren’t intended for adoption, Brisbane said. The population there also includes, cows, pigs, sheep, chickens, ducks and a miniature mule.

When Kovach first volunteered at the shelter, he was searching for community service involvement as a Boy Scout.

“They were looking for volunteers to help with the cats upstairs,” he said. “Then I got to train with the dogs.”

He’s been working at the sanctuary for about a month and will continue there in the evenings while completing his senior year at Mt. Pleasant Area Senior High and studying auto mechanics at Central Westmoreland Career and Technology Center.

As for his Scouting career, Kovach hopes to eventually become an adult leader. “I’m looking at how I can continue my path in Troop 405,” he said.

Visit animalfriendswestmoreland.org for more information about the shelter and sanctuary.