What is the operation at the Nye County Animal Shelter like?

The Pahrump Valley Times recently dropped by the Nye County Animal Shelter in Pahrump to check into allegations from an area resident claiming unsanitary conditions and neglect. However, after the unscheduled visit to the facility, no evidence of such neglect was found. While there were a few fresh messes, the kennels otherwise appeared be in good order, with shelter staff engaged in cleaning several kennels as the Times walked through.

“We’re not perfect,” Nye County Animal Shelter Manager Kristi Siegmund openly acknowledged when asked about the allegations. “I think the biggest thing is, we have people who come in and they know how they take care of their animals at home. And I applaud them for being so diligent in the care of their own animal. We want that here too. However, we have to remember, we are a shelter of 140-plus animals with a team of five. We just can’t give quite that level 24 hours a day.”

Siegmund noted that there have been volunteers in the past who have pushed to have the kennels kept spotless at all times but the reality is, that’s just not possible.

“Some of our animals, they like to take baths in their water. And animals poo,” she added. “Sometimes they will go in their kennel right after we clean it. Unfortunately, we can’t go right behind them every time – if we spend all our time circling back to things like that, we wouldn’t get all of the kennels clean.”

When it comes to the cleaning routines, Siegmund said this makes up the bulk of the three kennel techs’ work.

“It takes us all day to clean,” she detailed. “When our team is incredibly small and we only have three kennel techs to clean 200-plus kennels every single day, each kennel tech cleans, on average, 80-100 kennels a day. They spend their entire day just cleaning. The water dishes get dumped and cleaned every day. Every time the animals get fed, it’s a new, clean dish. Three walk-throughs are conducted each day, once in the morning, again in the afternoon and then before we close. So, at some point in the day, when there is a mess, we will see it, we will catch it and it will be addressed.”

Volunteers make the difference

With limited staff, the shelter’s volunteer program has become a major factor in giving the animals socialization. Cleaning is the priority for staff and if it were not for the volunteers, the animals would not be able to have the personal attention they are currently receiving.

“2025 was a year of building a lot of relationships,” Siegmund said. “We only started our volunteer program last year and we’re already up to over 50 volunteers. Even if they can come in for only 30 minutes, they can still get a couple of dogs out for a walk. Some come in for four, five, six hours and they are able to walk a dozen dogs. It’s really cool to see.

“There are so many people in our community who care about these animals,” she remarked. “We ask that you come in and help us. Come walk them, come play with them, come help clean.”

Dog-runs and play areas

As to where the dogs are taken for their exercise, the property at the back of the shelter is currently being transformed into an outdoor area with dog-runs and play yards.

“It’s still not done – it’s a work in progress – but when we are doing it for almost zero dollars, we can’t be too picky on how fast it gets done,” Siegmund explained as she walked the Times out to see the backyard. “We have 12 runs up right now and three play yards. The goals is 24 runs, plus five play yards so we are a little over halfway there.

“We try to keep the dogs rotated, so they have the chance to come out here to the runs for a couple of hours every day,” she continued. “We rotate through two or three dozen dogs in the outdoor runs, plus we have our volunteers who come to walk the dogs, so almost every dog gets out every day, whether in the runs or with a dog walker.”

The outdoor area project is largely the work of volunteers and donations, such as the donation of grading, clearing and pea gravel from Rene Morales of Morales Construction, with the county bearing less than $2,000 of the cost.

Kennels for outdoor options

In addition to runs and play yards, the team has also built temporary kennels for the dogs to go into when their indoor kennels are being cleaned, along with semi-permanent kennels for dogs that do not do well inside.

“These semi-permanent kennels are insulated and temperature controlled with their own little yards. So, when we get kiddos like this one, who just prefers to be outside, now we have a space where he can stay outside but he’s still out of the elements,” Siegmund said.

Local partnerships

Another example of building partnerships is the shelter’s participation in four of BISSELL Foundation’s Empty the Shelters events and one NBC Clear the Shelters event, all of which helped drive up last year’s adoption numbers. In total, the Nye County Animal Shelter, which serves all of Nye County, saw 1,609 intakes, of which roughly 1,200 were strays. There were 819 adoptions in 2025 and a further 398 return-to-owner animals, a number strongly tied to the use of microchips.

That’s isn’t all, either. In the wake of Tails of Nye County shutting down at the end of 2024, the shelter started its own trap-neuter-return (TNR) program for community cats that is having its own impact.

“Tails of Nye County was amazing, they were so phenomenal at what they did and we cannot hold a candle, those are big shoes to fill. But we are able to cover a little bit of the gap,” Siegmund said. “Last year, through our program, we were able to save 200 community cats. They were trapped, spayed or neutered, vaccinated and then released back out into the community. That really goes to help curb the overpopulation, which is already a problem here. The more we can do to ease that, the better.”

In fact, the shelter’s work in TNR has earned it a contribution from Hearts Alive Village in which 40 of the area’s community cats will be fixed, at no cost to the local shelter. “It’s just wins all the way around and I love that,” she stated.

Looking toward the future

“My goal for 2026 is to take that momentum from 2025 and keep it going. We’re going to build even more relationships with the community, we’re going to be doing even more with the businesses,” Siegmund concluded. “Our volunteer program is growing, we’ve even got groomers coming in to do baths and grooming for all these babies. 2026 is going to have just as many, if not more, positive outcomes at the end of the year.”

Anyone interested in touring the shelter is welcome to stop in Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The shelter is located at 1580 Siri Lane.

Contact reporter Robin Hebrock at rhebrock@pvtimes.com