Animal shelters work hard all the time to find homes for all the pets they can. But it can feel like a never-ending job: even as one dog gets adopted out, another is arriving, taking his place in the kennel.
But one animal shelter recently celebrated a rare, momentary milestone: for the first time, they got all their animals adopted, leaving their kennels completely empty — for the first time in 30 years.
That shelter is the Marshall County Humane Society, in Indiana. While they know its only temporary, they’ve still taken the opportunity to take pride in the achievement.
“Although we know that it won’t last long and it’s our honor to care for the homeless pets in our community, this is a huge milestone for us and we are proud to finally reach this goal,” they wrote on Facebook.
“It’s been a great week and we are excited to celebrate it,” Nancy Cox, director of the Marshall County Humane Society, told WSBT.
While it won’t last forever, a fully-cleared shelter is a great achievement for many reasons. For one thing, it’s a chance to easily clean up or reorganize if needed. With all 16 dog kennels vacant, it’s a prime opportunity.
And so many of the problems facing shelter dogs are due to overcrowding. Overflowing shelters suffer from limited resources and less attention given to each animal. In the worst cases this leads to kill shelters, where unwanted animals are just euthanized to make more room.
It’s clear that the Marshall County Humane Society won’t have any of these problems any time soon, and will be able to attend to whatever cats and dogs come into their care.
An empty shelter is also a good sign that they’re doing something right, that their adoption methods and community outreach are paying off.
Sometimes its just a matter of pairing the right dog to the right person, as was the case with Earl, a former matted stray who was adopted this month by dog groomer Andrea Bottomley.
“He came in as a matted mess… as soon as I saw him I fell in love with him,” Andrea told WSBT.
“He was really shy,” she adds. “It took a couple of days it’s just getting him to come up to me and letting me love on him and actually feel comfortable and not scared.” But now, he tags along with his owner to work at the grooming parlor.
An increase in pet adoptions has been associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, as more people are staying home and are looking for the companionship of a pet.
Nancy also attributes it to people being better educated about pets. There are fewer stray animals on the streets thanks to microchipping, she says, and more people know to rescue rather than buy from a shop.
“I think this is going to be a good new trend, I think we are going to come down and have people be more caring, more loving, and more supportive of shelter pets,” Nancy told WSBT.
Congratulations to this shelter on this great achievement! Keep up the great work!
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