If you have some free time and want to do some good, one place to volunteer is the McComb Animal Shelter. It needs people willing to walk dogs and feed the residents, for example.
On the other hand, be careful. It’s impossible to spend even an hour at the animal shelter on East Michigan Avenue — or any other facility that cares for strays and unwanted animals — without being tempted to bring one of them home.
Monique McCullough, the animal shelter’s new director, understands that sentiment very well. It’s one reason she recently came back to the facility after working there from 2012-17 as an animal control officer.
In December, the dog producing the highest level of temptation was Cathy, a slim, friendly, eager mixed breed with a chocolate merle coat.
There’s a reason Cathy happily greeted visitors from her cage: She has been in the animal shelter for a year — its longest resident. Without a word, she was saying, “Pick me! Pick me!”
But she’s nowhere close to setting a record. McCullough said another dog was in the shelter for two years before recently being adopted.
McCullough stayed in the pet relocation business during her time away from the shelter.
“When I left here in 2017, I actually started my own non-profit organization with some friends,” she said. “It was called the Mississippi Animal Project.”
The organization set up for drivers to transport pets from Mississippi to Northeastern states, including New York, Maine and Maryland.
Those states tend to have pet shortages because of their strict spay-and-neuter laws; Mississippi is among the states that don’t require the procedures.
Interestingly, there have been fewer deliveries up north in the last couple of years, because fewer people say they can afford the expense of owning a pet.
McCullough left the Mississippi Animal Project in 2022, but said she was always intrigued by the idea of returning to the McComb shelter. She got the chance when longtime director Courtney Holder left the job, and for the past three months has been a one-person operation.
The shelter is looking for a second employee. In the meantime, McCullough’s doing everything from cleaning up after the dogs and cats to answering calls for help in the McComb city limits.
“We probably get six to eight calls a day,” she said. “Unfortunately, we’re only able to respond to the ones in the city.”
Rosemary, who arrived at the animal shelter in October, inspects visitors from her cage. (Photo by Matt Williamson. Copyright 2025, Emmerich Newspapers, Inc.)
The calls for help come from surprising locations, she added.
“I had somebody contact me a few weeks ago from Rankin County,” she said. She also occasionally gets out-of-state calls that she suspects are meant for Macomb, Ill.
But half or more of the calls are from McComb residents, and her response depends on the situation. If the caller is describing a mean or vicious dog, McCullough goes to the location right away.
“We go out, kind of assess the situation,” she said. “Is the dog owned? Does it need to be picked up right away? Does it have a collar?”
She said it’s unusual if she brings three or four stray animals to the shelter in a week’s time. The two problems are that people regularly leave unwanted pets outside the shelter, and adoptions have been awfully slow lately. The McComb shelter, like most facilities, is perpetually dealing with a lack of space.
One cute black puppy — it is true that all puppies are cute — got dropped off there shortly before McCullough’s interview.
“They just put it out with a dog bed and food,” she said. “I do not encourage that. It is against state law to abandon an animal.”
Like most places, the McComb shelter has a number of pit bull mixes. But McCullough said there’s a surprising variety of dogs, too, including shelties and other mixes.
“Spin the wheel,” she remarked.
One recent unusual story involved a caller who said four dogs were either asleep or dead in the parking lot of a shopping center on Delaware Avenue. McCullough and police officer Shannon Regan, who used to be an animal control officer, went to have a look and found they were very alive. The female in the group was in heat, and the other three were following her around.
McCullough said she and Regan managed to capture two of them.
Police Chief Juan Cloy said he has already talked to several people about the second job at the animal shelter.
“It’s easy to find someone who says they love dogs,” Cloy said. “For me, I have to be very selective, because in a prior job, an animal control guy was killing dogs and leaving them in a ditch.
“You’ve got to love animals,” he added. “This is a different type of person. I listen to what Monique said — she calls them God’s creatures.”
Meanwhile, there are plenty of ways for people and businesses to help out.
McCullough praised chiropractor Dr. Steve Hennington, who has donated money for adoption fees, shots, spay or neuter surgery and even for microchipping pets who leave the shelter.
The PetSense store in McComb has held adoption fairs for the shelter in November and December.
And Regan, the former animal control officer, manages the shelter’s Facebook page. McCullough said there’s been a lot of response to those posts.
At any animal shelter, McCullough said volunteers could help with spay-and-neuter education, particularly batting down the incorrect myth that a neutered male dog is a poor-quality guard of his family’s home. A volunteer could pay for a neighbor or friend to adopt a pet, or provide essential supplies like food or kitty litter.
Paper towels, she added, are a big need, as is bleach, old sheets, towels and bedding blankets.
Money for worming shots is needed. The city pays for spaying and neutering procedures, and McCullough said all local veterinarians give discounts for treating shelter animals.
A sign in the animal shelter's office on East Michigan Avenue perfectly explains its mission. (Photo by Jack Ryan. Copyright 2025, Emmerich Newspapers, Inc.)
She recognizes that it can be difficult for volunteers to come to the shelter regularly without getting attached to the animals. That’s a problem among people who have made a career out of animal assistance.
“You have to have a kind heart, and you have to sometimes understand that you have to take yourself out of the situation emotionally,” she said. “That’s why in the animal rescue community, there’s a real thing with burnout.”
It happened with her, and it’s why she left the Mississippi Animal Project in 2022.
“I felt I had done my part. I needed a break,” she said.
But she added, “My heart’s always been here. I hope to have some good ideas and help McComb come together for the animals. They’re living things.”
There’s actually a reasonably happy ending to the animal shelter’s story. Several of them, in fact.
McCullough noted that anybody who adopts a pet from the shelter actually helps two animals — the one they took home and the space that the adoption opened in the shelter for another dog or cat.
Regan, the police officer, does a brisk job of managing the animal shelter’s Facebook page and can marshal assistance from local people with a couple of posts. The shelter has its fan club of people who just want to help.
That cute black puppy dropped off in December? McCullough named him Ebenezer, and he soon got sent to New Jersey for adoption through a shelter up there.
And finally, there is Cathy, the spotted brown “Pick me!” dog. After a full year, somebody did pick her in January, and she left the shelter. The new owners have renamed her Remi.
