03/29/2025
Hi. Itās us, your local municipal animal shelter.
-Do you knowā¦your local city shelter is an OPEN ADMISSIONS shelter, which means we take in EVERY dog and cat who comes through our doors? Itās an utterly exhausting amount of pets. We take in the dogs who are animal aggressive and/or people aggressive. We take in strays. We take in the dogs who are injured or unhealthy. All the litters of puppies and kittens, so many. We take in the 18-year-old cats who are skinny and losing their teeth and their family decided they donāt want them any longer. We take in the dogs who have been abused and are therefore rightfully terrified of people. We take in the cats who scratch and bite because so far in their lives no one has bothered to socialize them properly. We take in the dogs who are not easy to adopt out. We take in the dogs who are shut down and whose spirits have been broken by people not showing up for them in their lives. We take them in and our amazing staff and team of volunteers care for every single one of them with open hearts every day.
We have professional kennel staff who care for and feed animals and clean kennels and wash huge piles of laundry. We have professional vet staff who try to do right by all the hundreds of pets in their care to make sure they are getting the health care they need. We have a professional behavior team who works hard to keep up with trying to assess as many dogs who come through our doors, they make plans as to what ways our staff and volunteers can best give these dogs what they need to move towards becoming adoptable. Because honestly, itās the rare person who wants to adopt the senior dogs or the dogs who are struggling with anxiety, or any of a number of other behavior or health issues. Our hearts get broken on the daily doing this work. When thereās no more room, other shelters can turn pets away, they can choose to intake only the highly adoptable pets. When thereās no more room at your municipal shelter, we have to find more room because we donāt turn any pets away. We value the work all of the shelters in Albuquerque are doing, but our work can be different.
-Do you know that we welcome you as a volunteer to come in and help with this difficult situation? We have an extraordinary team of volunteers you can join. We welcome you to come in and walk dogs who havenāt been out of their kennels in days because there just is not enough staff and volunteers to walk the hundreds of dogs every day. There is a dog here waiting for you to come in and walk them. If you donāt show up they may not get walked today. You can help us in our laundry, or our offices, our cattery, our clinic, or you can volunteer with our food bank to help feed all the hungry pets who we serve OUTSIDE of our shelter in our community so they donāt end up in our shelter because of lack of resources.
-Do you know that you can foster a pet to get them out of the shelter and make a space for one of the hoards of pets who are being brought in each week? You can even foster for a weekend slumber party to get a stressed pet out of the shelter for a break. Fostering is difficult work. You may get attached, but those who are doing this difficult work are saving animals.
-Do you know you can adopt a pet from us? All of our adoption fees are waived. All of the time. We spay and neuter the pets for you, we vaccinate them and microchip them for you. Weāll even make them a free pet name tag, send you home with coupons for a free dog training class and a free initial vet visit. Our behavior team will consult with you if youāre struggling with training your pet after adoption. All of this at no cost to you. If you live within the city of ABQ you are allowed to have up to 6 pets, up to 4 of them can be dogs.
-Do you know your municipal shelter offers full transparency on the number of pets who are surrendered, adopted, reclaimed, euthanized? You can find this information on our website. And you can help make a difference in these numbers.
-Do you know that your city offers a lottery for free spay and neuter? Please call 311 to get your pets on the list. And please consider volunteering at the next spay and neuter blitz. We just held one last weekend where 188 local pets were spayed or neutered. During the blitz in January 243 city pets were spayed or neutered. Itās hard work and we could use more volunteers for our next blitz in May.
The pets in your municipal shelter need their community. They need you.
Pictured is Sammy A1904325, one of our longest residents. Sammy has been waiting for 233 days for someone to show up to adopt him.
