PAWS sees a drop in adoptions in 2020
♦ The organization plans to launch a new transportation trailer in 2021
Public Animal Welfare Services reported fewer adoptions in 2020 than in 2019 but, according to Director Jeff Mitchell, rescue transports have been the key to keeping the population of animals housed at the facility low this year.
For 2020, they took in 3,039 animals, but only had 885 adoptions.
Despite the drop in adoptions, Mitchell said they have almost doubled the number of transports to rescues to northern states in 2020.
Going into 2021, Mitchell wants to continue to focus on the rescue transports and to really “buckle down.”
PAWS has been closed to the public for a majority of the year, and have been doing adoptions by appointment only and decreased the number of walk-ins coming in and out of the facility.
However, in 2021, they will have their new climate-controlled transportation and rescue vehicle and trailer.
The trailer, which came from the $20,000 Petco Shelter and Adoption Grant, will be equipped to transport roughly 70 to 80 animals across the country.
The specially designed trailer will be insulated with two air conditioning units and will be towed by an extended cab pickup truck that was purchased by the county using some of the money from the grant.
All remaining funds from that grant were used to purchase new crates for the inside of the trailer.
The transport trailer and vehicle will also come into use in case of emergency weather situations, where they would have to transport some animals to a safe location.
Mitchell hopes they’ll be able to host more adoption events as well in the coming year, such as Pup-a-palooza, and take more animals with them using the new transportation trailer.
While the facility is currently still closed to the public, they’ll reopen after the holidays and have the trailer wrapped with the PAWS logo and ready for use.