North Fork Animal Welfare League

The new three-year deal approved and signed yesterday by Riverhead Town contracts with the Peconic-based not-for-profit organization to manage the town's Youngs Avenue shelter and provide animal control services throughout the town for a fee of $233,135 in year one, increased by $5,000 per year in years two and three.

With a little help from social media, a senior dog who has spent most of her life at Southold Animal Shelter has finally been adopted by a family in Pennsylvania.

“This time of year it seems so silly to buy all kinds of stuff for each other,” said April Yakaboski, Aerial Fitness and Hot Yoga owner. “I would rather give it to the animals. They don’t have any means of providing for themselves.”

Riverhead Move the Animal Shelter will be “closing its doors” after its 50th and final fundraiser in November. Founder Denise Lucas says dealing with town officials and the lack of progress in building a new shelter has been too stressful.

North Fork Animal Welfare League plans to replace a community center in Calverton with a state-of-the-art, renovated facility within two years, where the Riverhead Animal Shelter would relocate from its current site beside the closed town landfill on Youngs Avenue.

“There were dogs living here for two, three years with no physical contact at all,” said a shelter staff member who also volunteered at the town shelter before it was managed by the League. “They were basically rotting in a jail cell."