Lodi Animal Shelter faces overcrowding problem
The Lodi Animal Shelter is facing issues of overcrowding, and seeking the communities assistance with accommodating animals in need of a home. Last week the shelter put an urgent plea on Facebook and worked with local rescues, citizens, and other shelters to save as many adoptable animals as possible.
According to animal services officer Brittnee Tran, currently the shelter is bringing in a lot of cats because it is kitten season and a lot of strays and pet cats are breeding.
“A lot of people are finding kittens and moms with kittens at their residence so they’re bring in those cats,” she said.
The amount of dogs they get in the shelter tends to fluctuate every once in a while, she said.
In an effort to prevent some of the overcrowding, the shelter only takes in strays from Lodi and do not take in owner releases. Those finding strays must turn them in with in five business days of finding them in order for the shelter to take them in. After that the animals become the finder’s responsibility and they will have to find a rescue for it or find someone willing to take it in.
“We have a directory here and we refer them to rescues that we have on that directory,” she said. “If those rescues aren’t able to assist we do recommend asking them if they know any other rescues that can assist them in finding new homes for their pets.”
Tran said they had a lot of kittens that were not old enough to be adopted and they were taking up space so they had to find rescues to take in those kittens.
They also had adoptable cats that no one was interested in adopting. The shelter has quite a few dogs available for adoption and a lot of them have been spayed and neutered but yet no one showed interest in adoption.
“I think it came down to not having enough people that were interested in adopting animals recently, that we weren’t getting enough out,” she said. “We’ve had a lot of rescues come through and pull animals through our shelter but it’s kind of hard to keep up with the numbers that are coming in. It just came so hard and so fast last week that it was just hard to keep up with the amount of animals we had in our Shelter.”
Tran said situations like this have occurred in the past and now they are using a lot more social media to help with the situation. She said animal service staff decided to see how the public would respond to them putting a plea for assistance on social media, and they received a huge response.
When the shelter is overcrowded Tran said kennel space is limited, making it difficult to house the growing number of animals they have coming in. The shelter only has 24 dog kennels and 12 cat cages. At the shelter, space has to be left opened for quarantined dogs, animals with owners arrested or in the hospital as well as dogs in vicious hearing cases which also adds to the difficulty of finding space for the animals. Currently there are only three protective custody animals in the shelter and the rest are strays.
If they aren’t able to make enough room for all the animals, they have to make the tough decision to euthanize some.
“We don’t euthanize any adoptable animals. That we do not do,” Tran said. “When we euthanize animals here it’s either a medical issue with the animal or there is a behavioral issue with the animal. We kind of look through the shelter and see how severe the medical issue or the behavior is and also how long the animal has been at our shelter to determine which ones we would euthanize.”
Last Thursday, Tran said they were at the point of determining which animals would have to be euthanized but so far no animals have been euthanized at this time.
Sometimes, in happy circumstances, they are able to get a rescuer to come and immediately and take in animals to make more room.
In an effort to help with issue of overcrowding, People Assisting Lodi Shelter (PALS), is in the process of building an additional 13,000 square foot shelter to take on the shelter’s adoptable animals and those needing extra training or medical help. According to PALS Director Nancy Alumbaugh, the new shelter located on Sargent Road near Sycamore Lanes Kennel is called PALS Haven and so far $1.3 million has been spent on the shelter. Approximately $390,000 more is needed to complete the shelter. Installing water tanks and a fire well along with the exterior walls and finishing plumbing are just a few of the things that still need to be done.
On June 17 from 5 to 9 p.m., they will be hosting Raise the Woof at Woodbridge Winery, which will include a tri-tip dinner with live music by Crosstown 5. The cost of the event is $45 per person.
To help with the shelter’s overcrowding situation, call 209-333-6741. For more information on helping PALS with its efforts to build a new shelter call 209-224-0354.