Jennifer Slusser knew she wanted a dog and did not want to go to a breeder. After exploring her options, she scoured the Fort Bend County Animal Services Facebook and found Charlie.
“In his adoption advertisement photo I noticed his giant head and goofy little ears,” Slusser says. “I just fell in love with him.”
Slusser’s two-year-old daughter Maddie followed in her mother’s steps the day they went to visit Charlie. The three of them walked out of the shelter as a new family unit.
In recent months, Greater-Houston area shelters are not experiencing success stories, like Charlie’s. Many facilities have been struggling to keep up with their growing populations and some are working to adopt new strategies for dealing with the overflow.
“After 2020, a lot of economic factors impacted peoples’ ability to care for their animals,” Cory Stottlemyer, Public Information Officer and Deputy Shelter Director of BARC Animal Shelter and Adoptions, says. “Adoptions have been down, people aren’t in the position to take in animals and it is affecting shelters nationwide.” Add to that the many accounts of pets adopted for companionship during the height of the pandemic, being turned in to shelters after owners go back to office jobs and the numbers are going the wrong way.
To curb the decrease in adoptions, shelters have had to get creative with advertising their animals who are in need of permanent placements. The Houston SPCA just put on their annual Clear the Shelters event where adoptive families visit with prospective animals and participate in other fun activities. They have another upcoming annual adoption event, Home for the Holidays, that will run November 25 through December 23.
The Fort Bend County Animal Shelter also recently implemented three new programs to encourage adoptions. They will be providing delivery services, Kitty Kab and Doggy Dash, alongside a Curbside Pick-Up adoption option.
According to Stottlemyer, the populations of animals in shelters can be divided into three main groups: owner-surrender intakes, strays and animal cruelty case rescues.
“There is a larger rate of animals being turned out on the streets because of the pandemic,” Stottlemyer says. “Just this year, there has already been an increase in the number of strays our team has brought in by 34 percent.”
BARC has seen the overall percentage of strays rise to 60 percent, while owner-surrender animal returns make up 30 percent of their facilities’ overall population.
“It is not just your Great-Houston area shelters that are dealing with the crisis,” Rene Vasquez, Director of Fort Bend County Animal Services, says. “Here in Fort Bend, we are too and we know that right now all shelters are dealing with it too.”
Fort Bend County Animal Services’ adoptions, rescues and fosters have gone down. This is placing Vasquez’s team in a difficult position where adoptions are not meeting the number of animal intakes.
To motivate community members to adopt, Fort Bend County Animal Services instituted free spaying, neutering, chipping and vaccination services for no cost to the adoptive family or individual.
“We are making it as non-expensive as we can by providing everything for the pet,” Vasquez says. “These pets do not have to go to the veterinarian until their one-year check-up.”
Not only are they making it as inexpensive as possible, they are also ensuring that adoptions are accessible as possible. With the implementation of ‘Doggy Dash and Kitty Kab’ services, with Curbside Pick-Up, animals can be transported and delivered directly to the adoptee. Also, if the adoptee does not elect to participate in delivery services, they have the option to arrive at the shelter and pick-up their pets.
This program was supposed to run until the end of October 2022. However, as stated in an email sent to the Houston Press from the Fort Bend County Judges’ Office, they are considering an extension after having to temporarily put these operations on hiatus due to an upper respiratory illness spread to at least 65 of their dogs.
These shelters are having to provide services to juggle between the rise in animal intakes and the decrease in adoptions. Creating accessibility to adoptions is one thing, managing their growth in populations is another. This is why many shelters are emphasizing their spay-neuter resources.
The Houston SPCA directly connects adoptees with local clinics that either provide low-cost or no-cost spay-neuter services through their spay-neuter assistance program. Also all of their animals adopted directly through them come with an adoption package which includes microchipping, most up-to-date vaccinations, one free bag of Hill’s Pet Nutrition food, and one free post-adoption visit from any VCA animal hospital.
Houston Humane Society provides similar resources through their Pet Resources Program, ‘Fix Felix & Friends,” all animals adopted will come spayed or neutered, microchipped, and vaccinated free of charge. Once these pets are fixed, they are at a lesser rate to run-away to find a mate, which will decrease the number of stray puppy litters seen by these shelters.
SNAP, Spay/Neuter & Animal Wellness Clinic of Houston, currently has a partnership with BARC, among other animal shelters to assist in their adopted animals’ spay and neuter operations.
“We strongly believe that spay/neuter is the beginning of being able to fight the overpopulation issue that these shelters are facing,” says Magda Serrano, Donor and Development Lead of SNAP.
SNAP also provides their community wellness services. For dogs this includes heartworm testing, rabies vaccinations, distemper-parvo vaccines, and medications to treat kennel cough, leptospirosis, and K-9 influenza. For cats, they provide feline distemper-parvo vaccines, feline leukemia vaccines, and heartworm testing.
Additional programs of the Houston Humane Society’s Resources target other essential needs of local pet owners. Pet Pantry, an outreach program that assists in providing free food and other supplies to animal owners in need. This assistance is geared towards keeping animals in their homes and avoiding pet relocation.
These shelters are attempting to address all the effects brought on by the last two years of the pandemic. What assistance they need the most is for the community around them to engage with these adoptive, volunteer, and rescue services.
Jennifer Slusser remembers the need she felt to participate after scrolling through Facebook posts that detailed Fort Bend County’s Capacity limits. This outreach was what made her consider adopting in the first place.
“I knew that I wanted to adopt because I kept seeing posts about overcrowding and animals having to be put to sleep because the shelters had no other choice,” Slusser says. “I didn’t have a plan but Charlie ended up fitting right in, he was perfect for our family.
When asked, Slusser says without a doubt she would be willing to adopt again.
Related Stories
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2022.
