Half-price adoptions are being offered in an effort to find homes for pets at the St. Joseph Animal Shelter which is at capacity.
Animal Shelter Humane Educator Jenna Keyes said they usually work with local rescue organizations in Missouri, Kansas and Nebraska but those places are also full at this time.
The shelter has 45 to 50 available kennels and, as of Tuesday morning, the shelter had 38 dogs in the main kennel and 14 dogs in the Puppies for Parole program. According to Keyes, they are required to have seven open kennels at all times. In the small animal room, there are 15 cats in the 22 cage room.
Keyes said every year at this time, a lot more animals tend to come into the shelter due to a lot of strays, owner relinquishes and Puppy Parole graduates coming back to await adoption and they approach or reach capacity.
“Around Fourth of July until the start of school is usually kind of our scramble, trying our hardest to get these dogs out and get them adopted or into rescue and cats as well, getting them adopted,” Keyes said. “When it turns to fall, gets a little cooler, animals stop traveling as much, people aren’t outside as much so we don’t see as many of those animals coming in, but that tends to be the yearly flow: busy in the summer and pretty slow in the winter.”
The Friends of the Animal Shelter saw the need and extended a half-price adoption deal through Wednesday to help get animals adopted out instead of having to consider euthanizing adoptable animals.
“Luckily, we haven’t gotten to a point where we had to decide to euthanize that day,” Keyes said. “The past couple of weeks have been rough just because everywhere has been in the same situation as we are and they’ve been very full as well. But thankfully it looks like this week we might get a few dogs into rescue organizations as well as all the great adoptions from this half price event so we’re definitely getting in a better position.”
The Friends of the Animal Shelter is offering half-price adoptions through Wednesday at the shelter, Petco and Petsmart. For more information, go to the Friends of the Animal Shelter Facebook page or call the shelter at (816) 271-4877.