Lake uses Puppy Bowl to ride adoption wave
TAVARES – Defcon might finally have a brother.
The excitable 9-month-old pit bull wagged his tail as his owners walked him around the parking lot of the Lake County Animal Shelter. With them was Lennon, a brown lab mix, whom shelter staff hoped had found a home.
“[Defcon] needs a friend to wear out his energy because he’s super excited all the time,” said Kristin Burnsed of Howey-InThe-Hills. “We live on 5 acres so he needs someone to run with.”
Partnered with Animal Planet, the shelter’s Puppy Bowl Tailwaggin’ Tailgate Party hoped to pair people with new pets in time to watch Super Bowl LII Sunday evening.
Burnsed and her 12-year-old daughter Chevenee have been coming to the shelter for three weeks looking for a dog that could keep up with Defcon’s energy, and also be a good fit for their family.
After seven parking lot meet and greets with other dogs at the shelter, Lennon was the first to mesh with Defcon. They sniffed each other, played and wagged their tales. Best of all, neither growled.
“That dog just reacted perfectly,” said Burnsed. “He got along with him, he played with him, there was no running away from the excitement of my dog.”
So now the family is bringing him home for a sleepover, in hopes that the two get along in order to make it a forever home.
“We strongly encourage you to bring your dog for a meet and greet,” said shelter manager Whitney Boylston. “We sell [the sleepover] as low commitment, but big impact.”
The shelter kept track of adoptions this weekend on a whiteboard with two teams “Team Ruff” for its 100-plus dogs, and “Team Fluff” for its cats, a nod to the teams in the Puppy Bowl.
In its first year as a “no-kill” shelter, the facility saw adoptions spike and also had more than 90 percent of its dogs and cats released alive — either by adoption or by returning a missing animal to its owner, Lake County spokeswoman Elisha Pappacoda said.
In January, the shelter adopted out 350 animals, which more than triples the 114 adopted last January. In total, 1,600 more animals were adopted in 2017 than 2016, Boylston said.
One dog the shelter hopes to place in a home soon is NeeNee, a 5-year-old lab mix.
She was surrendered to the shelter after she was hit by a car and her owners couldn’t afford medical treatment for her.
The sweet-natured dog has a broken back