PAWS overloaded, waives adoption fees
The animal shelter is overloaded and has temporarily stopped accepting owner-surrendered dogs and cats.
PAWS is waiving adoption fees for all its dogs and cats in an effort to make some more room in the overloaded public animal welfare services facility at 99 North Ave.
Office manager April Smith said they’ve also stopped taking any pet surrenders for the time being. On Monday morning there were 101 cats and 71 dogs awaiting disposition.
“We’ve been fee-free on large dogs for about three weeks. Then we got full on puppies so we just suspended the fees on everything,” Smith said.
Several of the dogs and cats in the shelter have already been sterilized and received their rabies shots.
“So you can get a free animal and not have to pay for spay or neutering,” Smith noted.
The facility was a hub of activity Monday, with volunteers Bonnie Lieberman and Maryann Redding opening dozens of cans of wet food and filling paper trays to feed the felines sharing cages.
Veterinarian assistant Nicole Farrell was giving some of the kittens their first FVRCP vaccinations. The shot protects against three potentially deadly airborne viruses: rhinotracheitis, calicivirus and panleukopenia, also known as distemper.
“They’re just old enough and a rescue group is coming for them tomorrow,” Farrell said.
Meanwhile, a few families were strolling through the cage and pen areas, occasionally going into one of the cat petting rooms or taking a dog outside to a fenced area for some face-time with a potential pet.
PAWS is open for adoptions from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and from 1 to 5 p.m. Saturday.
The regular adoption fees are $40 for dogs and $35 for cats but they are temporarily being waived. People adopting a pet have a certain amount of time to show they’ve gotten it a rabies shot and had it sterilized.