Hillsborough County Animal Services is teaming up with Petco Love and other regional shelters to offer up some 500 dogs for adoption for free this weekend. The Petco Love Mega Pet Adoption goal is to find homes for 5,000 dogs.
Each dog will be ready for adoption on Saturday, complete with spay or neuter, all shots, and a chip. Adoptees will be approved as long as they are not listed as an animal abuser.
“We are expecting about 500 animals, all dogs,” said Chelsea Waldeck. She’s senior supervisor of volunteer services for Hillsborough County Animal Services. “Just dogs because we don’t have a spot to safely separate the dogs and cats. It is going to be our dogs and dogs from seven other counties.” Those include Pasco, Hernando, Manatee, Sumpter, Orange and Marion counties.
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Pet shelters across the nation have been particularly overcrowded in the last couple of years. With more pets coming in than are getting adopted. The Pet Resource Center is currently at about 200% capacity for dogs and cats, Waldeck said. Some have been at the shelter for over 100 days.
“We want to bring our shelter back to capacity,” she said. “It is a nationwide issue right now that shelters are experiencing a 7% increase in takes versus outcomes. A lot of it has to do with the economy and the housing crisis. People can’t get loans, so they are having to move into apartments that have breed restrictions.”
Overcrowding in shelters
In Vermont, for example, the Humane Society of Chittenden County has experienced the uptick. “Especially really emergent situations, folks losing housing, folks dealing with just the cost of other aspects of their life. And these issues that are just kind of all rolled together that are making it really tough for people,” Cynthia Harris Cole of the Humane Society of Chittenden County told WCAX.
The Newhaven Register in Connecticut reports a similar uptick.
“With about 120 animals already occupying the space at Animal Haven, the nonprofit shelter can’t take in any more pets, despite an uptick in the number of pet surrenders,” the newspaper reported.
“I think there’s been more surrenders this month than there has been in 10 years,” Shelter Manager Michelle DeRosa said recently. The Connecticut shelter has had to turn away people from the no-kill shelter due to capacity issues.
Florida shelters are no different.
Waldeck said about 70% of the dogs available for adoptions are considered “pitty” breeds. “But we are also seeing a lot of herding dogs, including German shepherds, huskies and hound mixes.”
As for the pit bull situation, a big part of the issue is that pit owners do not get their animals sterilized, Waldeck said. “That is why we are also doing Operation Pit Stop soon, which is six weeks of free spays and neuters for pitty type breeds. All dogs that leave our facility will be spayed or neutered, have microchips and all vaccines.”
More about the Petco Love Mega Pet Adoption Event
All fees will be waived for this weekend’s event, which takes place at the Strawberry Festival grounds in Plant City, 2508 W. Oak Ave. from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday and from 9 a.m. to 12 noon on Sunday.
The Hillsborough County Pet Resource Center is the only open-admissions shelter in Hillsborough County. That means it accepts all dogs and cats regardless of breed, size, or medical condition.
The Hillsborough shelter is open to the public from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday but will be closed to the public June 23-25 during the offsite adoption event.
Information on dogs and cats available for adoption is available through PRC’s online kennel.