St. Joseph Animal Shelter at capacity
ST. JOSEPH, Mo. (News-Press NOW) — The St. Joseph Animal Shelter is encouraging residents to adopt dogs in hopes of avoiding making “devastating decisions.”
Friends of the Animal Shelter posted Thursday about the shelter being at maximum capacity, despite several waived fee adoption events and transferring dogs to nearby rescue partners. Still, staff can’t keep up with the influx of dogs they receive daily.
The shelter has asked residents to consider fostering or adopting to avoid euthanizing dogs, and thankfully, their call to action is being answered.
“I just feel like, man, if you can offer a dog a good home you should definitely come and adopt,” Jennifer Skeen, who was in the process of adopting a dog, said. “This is no place for a dog long term, so they need love, too.”
Other residents also stopped by the shelter to take a pet home on Thursday.
“The citizens have to step up and take care of the animals and help if they can,” Stefanie Koerper, another adopter, said. “Whether it’s fostering, adopting, you can all help in one way or another: making donations, bringing food, blankets, anything will help, but they really need adoptions and fostering.”
While several residents showed up to adopt dogs, within the first hour of the shelter opening, several more dogs were surrendered.
“With the intakes, it’s really hard to know what’s going to happen tomorrow,” Senior Animal Care Specialist Aubrey Silvey said. “Because we have days where we’re taking in, you know, 15-plus dogs at a time. Which, when we only have 52 kennels, it’s really difficult to keep up with that.”
Silvey said the influx of dogs can be lowered significantly if people looked into other resources before bringing them to the shelter.
“If you’re needing to rehome your pet or if you find a pet, just make sure that you know what to do, taking those steps so that we are your last resource,” she said. “Give us a call and we can point you in the right direction for rehoming a pet or finding a pet’s rightful home ... but we shouldn’t be the first stop for a dog that you find because we are just so overloaded with animals.”
Whether through donations, volunteering, adopting or fostering, the St. Joseph Animal Shelter needs the community’s help.
The shelter is open for adoptions 1 to 5:30 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday. Those interested in supporting the shelter through donations, fostering or adopting should visit the shelter’s website at petforu.com.
