By Elika RoohiNEWS-MINER INTERN

Loving Companions, a shelter in North Pole, started taking care of Nome’s stray dogs this summer.

The Nome Animal Shelter has been

defunct for several months. When Animal Shelter Manager Amy Smith-heisler retired in April, the Nome Police Department took over animal care for the city while it looked for someone new to run the shelter. No one has been hired yet.

“They’re doing two jobs,” said Nicole Legerat from the Golden Heart Pet Assistance League. “They taking care of the animals and the city of Nome.”

Susan Wolf and her 16-year-old daughter, who were volunteering for the animal shelter until recently, said they were appalled by the conditions the police department had let the ani-mal shelter fall into.

“I just don’t think that the NPD is the place to have the shelter,” Wolf said. “The animals were not being ade-quately cared for. I saw conditions that I believe were unacceptable.”

Wolf said she was asked to stop vol-unteering at the shelter after she tried to get the Nome City Council to pay attention by taking pictures of the shelter’s conditions and writing a letter to the council.

Wolf ’s letter to the council stated the importance of a well-maintained ani-mal shelter in Nome.

“We are the end of the Iditarod, and Nome’s dogs should reflect that we care for and love our animals and are

committed to that end. Instead, vis-itors see dogs in their own filth, no shelter and on short chains, despite the fact that there are statutes against such things,” Wolf ’s letter read.

Nome Police Chief John Papasod-ora, Mayor Denise Michels and City Manager Josie Bahnke did not return calls from the News-Miner.

Without the proper care in Nome, many of the city’s animals have been sent to shelters in Fairbanks. Donna Buck-Davis, the director of Loving Companions, has been taking on ani-mals from Nome for several months.

75 cents SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 2013 newsminer.com

T H E V O I C E O F I N T E R I O R A L A S K A S I N C E 1 9 0 3

SOURDOUGH JACK:

“I told the missus I wanted another canine companion. She said 10 is enough already, so I asked her, ‘What’s one more?’ She said ‘11.’”

The weather.Today should be partly cloudy.

High today ................ 7Low tonight .............-8

WEATHER » A9

GOODMORNING

Classified » B8 | Comics » B6 | Dear Abby » B5 | Nation » A7 | Markets » B7 | Obituaries » A5 | Opinion » A6 | Weather » A9INSIDE

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New York attorney is challenging Begich in primary — without leaving home. » A2Inside Today

IT’S BUSY SEASONStorm generates business for area repair shops.

INTERIORPage A4

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Aurora forecast.Auroral activity will be low. Weather permit-ting, low displays will be visible overhead from Barrow to Fairbanks.

This information is provid-ed by aurora forecasters at the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. For more infor-mation about the aurora, visit http://www.gi.alaska.edu/AuroraForecast

HOOP IT UPNanooks and Sunbirds to meet for GCI Alaska Invitational title.

SPORTSPage B1

Soldiers get lessons in resiliencyBy Matt BuxtonMBUXTON@NEWSMINER.COM

Soldiers in the U.S. Army spend much of their time training to be tough and combat ready, but this week soldiers on Fort Wainwright worked on being resilient when coping with mental and emotional challenges while deployed and while home.

For the last week, every soldier at Fort Wainwright has been going through courses and programs rang-ing from suicide prevention and awareness courses, to domestic vio-lence prevention and relationship building.

The week is part of the Ready and Resilient Campaign, which is an ongo-ing program across all U.S. Army bas-

es aimed at helping soldiers and their families deal with the challenges of being in the armed services.

“The focus this week is the middle phase of the three phase plan to inform military unit leadership even down to the soldier level of all those activities and support agencies out there to sup-port them on their mission,” said Act-ing Garrison Manager Wesley Potter. “There a lot of stressors being exerted on the force right now and the com-munity here on Fort Wainwright has a lot of resources to help to reduce those stressors.”

Karen Conrad, the Army Commu-nity Service director, said that the courses this week have included a wide range of issues that address some of the most pressing problems in the mil-itary, such as suicide and depression.

“We’re working with the soldiers in developing skill sets to become more ready and resilient,” she said. “There are a lot of courses in stress manage-ment, domestic violence prevention, sexual assault prevention, a lot of par-enting and marriage and relationship.

Program aims to help troops, their families deal with challenges of being in armed services

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Dogs from Nome sent to Interior after animal shelter goes defunct

Nikolai Sprouse, 7, left, along with sister Leila, 3, center, and mother Chrissy, right, pets their 8-month-old puppy Cuddles on Friday afternoon. “The kids fell in love with her,” Chrissy said about when the family first saw the beagle/daschund mixed breed at Loving Companions Animal Rescue Inc. in North Pole last month. Going to look at a different dog that had already been adopted, the Sprouse family was introduced to Cuddles, who was originally named Minnie. “All she wants to do is cuddles, so the kids renamed her,” Chrissy added. Cuddles is a rescue dog from Nome, which no longer has an animal shelter. ERIC ENGMAN/NEWS-MINER

In need of a little TLC

City chief of staff Pat Cole diesBy Sam FriedmanSFRIEDMAN@NEWSMINER.COM

Longtime Fairbanks municipal leader Pat Cole died Thursday morning in Seattle.

Cole died from complications follow-ing a heart transplant he underwent early Monday at the University of Washington, according to his younger brother, Dermot Cole.

Cole, 63, is the older brother of identi-cal twins Dermot Cole, a Fairbanks news reporter and former News-Miner colum-nist, and Terrence Cole, a historian at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Cole was serving as the city of Fairbanks’ chief of staff at the time of his death.

Although the heart transplant was a high-risk operation, the family had been optimis-tic it would work, Dermot Cole said Friday.

“This was a shock. We fully expected this to work, as he did,” he said.

Pat Cole grew up in rural Pennsylvania, the eldest of six children. He moved to Alas-ka in 1970 to attend UAF.

Dermot Cole credits his older brother as the reason he and his twin brother moved to Alaska. Two of their sisters also followed Pat

Fairbanks City Chief of Staff Pat Cole and his wife, Judy, pose outside the University of Washington hospital Aug. 14. Cole died from complications following a heart transplant he underwent early Monday in Seattle, according to his younger brother, Dermot Cole. DERMOT COLE PHOTO

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DOGS » A10