11/07/2024
Tucson you’d shelter has 1000 animals go adopt!!!
MESSAGE FROM THE DIRECTOR:
The last couple weeks at PACC have been challenging. We have continued to see significantly more dogs entering the shelter than leaving. We've watched our census jump from 475 dogs, to 530, to 570 despite every effort to bring more people in to adopt and foster.
We couldn't keep just hoping for adopters and fosters, so yesterday we pulled together our management team for an emergency meeting to discuss a difficult topic... euthanasia. With 978 animals, 570 of which are dogs, in our shelter, 50+ dogs coming in daily, space and resources stretched to the absolute max, and adoptions and fosters slow despite our pleas to the community, where do we go from here?
Thankfully, we had an excellent day yesterday, with twice the number of dogs leaving the shelter than coming in, bringing us down to 533 dogs in shelter today. That number is still astronomical, is still urgent, but it's not 570. This one good day has given us hope that we, with our community's efforts, can turn this around without having to result to drastic measures.
We cannot say it enough: To improve this situation, to prevent euthanasia, we NEED our community to help us make every day a good day. We need adopters and fosters. We need folks to make the effort to find the homes of happy, healthy lost pets by using tools like Petco Love Lost (lost.petcolove.org) BEFORE bringing them to the shelter. We need pet owners to be responsible and to take the basic steps to keep a collar and tag on their pets and to keep them safe and contained. We need our supporters to help spread the word. Surely in a county that's home to more than a million people, even just a few of those people can step up for dogs in need.
Our current goal is to reach 500 dogs in our shelter by this Sunday and then continue lowering that number. All dogs and puppies are currently free to adopt, and all medium-to-large dogs that are adopted go home with a FREE crate through Sunday. If you can't commit to forever but you have even two weeks to share with a dog in need, you can save lives, too - and even if you can't take a dog home at all, you can help by taking the steps outlined above.
Thank you, always, for your care for Pima County pets. With your help, PACC has found homes for more than 12,000 animals so far this year. I look forward to seeing how many more we can save - together.
Monica Dangler