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Fort Worth animal shelter reaches critical capacity
Fort Worth animal shelters are well beyond capacity and urgently need adopters and fosters to help ease the overflow.
FORT WORTH, Texas - The Fort Worth animal shelter is in need of help as it reports that both of the city shelters are well beyond capacity. As a result, some of the animals are being kept in temporary outdoor enclosures.
Fort Worth animal shelters face critical overflow
What we know:
They’re calling it a dire-need situation. The City of Fort Worth needs people to adopt an extreme overflow of dogs and cats.
Both the city’s shelters are well beyond capacity. That means they no longer have room for new animals to come in.
Pet surrenders and stray intakes rise
Local perspective:
In the month of June, Fort Worth city officials say, is typically when more people surrender pets or drop off strays. However, recently, the intake exceeds what they can handle.
They have incentives in place for those who adopt or choose to foster an animal temporarily, as the city’s animal care and control division currently has 371 animals.
"Ideally, we would want to keep the shelter at a capacity of around 250. That would just be more sustainable for everyone involved, our team, our staff and the issues that we have," said Melanie Pena, Superintendent of Fort Worth Animal Care and Control.
"I would say if you were looking for a new pet, whether it be a dog or a cat or puppy. Please come to the shelter. We have incredible dogs that are people, friendly, dog friendly, that just want a home. If you want to come to the shelter, we would really appreciate your help."
How to foster or adopt
Dig deeper:
You can foster an animal for as few as one or two weeks as they say that program is a tremendous help to ease the burden of the available staff. Food and supplies are provided.
"If you’re not able to adopt, we have an incredible Foster program. The Foster program is wonderful. If you could help us with an animal for even one to two weeks, that would be so beneficial for us because we wouldn’t have to make hard decisions," said Pena.
Adoptions for small to medium-sized dogs are the greatest need.
Just as a reminder, all the animals are spayed and neutered, and you don’t have to live in Fort Worth to adopt or help out.
The Source: Information in this article was provided by FOX 4's Dionne Anglin.