People Worth Knowing: She Makes Animals Adoptable

People Worth Knowing

She Makes Animals Adoptable

TUESDAY APR 25 1978

By Zada Blayton

STAFF REPORTER

Almost every Wednesday since last June, animals at the Humane Society of Huron Valley have been made to feel a little more comfortable and have become a little more adoptable.

Last June, Jane Cooch of Daleview Drive in Ann Arbor, began making weekly trips to the shelter at 3100 Cherry Hill Road as a groomer. Prior to that the only dog she said she had groomed was her own five-year-old New Foundland.

“I’ve learned a lot but I’ve got a lot to learn before I'm good at it,” said Mrs. Cooch. But Kathleen Flood, executive director of the Humane Society, says Cooch is the reason many an animal there has been adopted.

"I ENJOY IT. I look forward to it," said Mrs. Cooch. “I’d like to come here someday and find no dogs at all,” said the ardent animal lover.

“I’d thought about it for a long time. For years I've supported the Humane Society with a little contribution each year. But I’d never come out here because I thought it would be so upsetting I couldn’t stand it.

“Stay. That’s a goo-ood dog,” says Mrs. Cooch to her squirming subject.

“I’m not very good at it but I know I make them look a lot better and I know some of them feel a little better,” she said. She remembers one animal she groomed whose hair was matted all over its body. “He felt so good when he was able to move it was a pleasure to have done it. ”

“I’ve seen them with wads on their pads that hurt if they stand on them,” she said.

“WHEN I FIRST came here I wasn’t using any clippers at all,” said Mrs. Cooch. “I was scared to death of them. I was using scissors.”

Today, Mrs. Cooch not only uses electric clippers, but her own electric clippers along with other grooming equipment she has invested in. She cuts hair, brushes, combs and trims nails.

“Most dogs don’t seem to mind having their toenails cut,” she said. “I can’t figure it out because my dog just fights me every step of the way.

"I’m always delighted when they are adopted,” she said.

“I BELIEVE THEY keep them just as absolutely long as they can but when all the cages are filled up or an animals gets ill there isn’t much point in keeping it long-er," says Cooch.

"I feel personally they are doing a good job. There are just too many animals running loose,” she says.

“The first afternoon I was out here I got nipped. That was the first and the last time. If they are too fiesty they either don’t get trimmed or sometimes if I ask them they will tranquilize them,” says Cooch.

“Some are darling dogs but if they jiggle around all the time there is nothing you can do. But I don’t like to tranquilize them.

“It makes them stagger and I’m sure it makes them feel funny. They don’t give them that much to make them sleep.”

Jane Cooch Grooms Dog