Looking for a furry friend? Humane Society has cats to spare
The Tacoma-Pierce County Humane Society is overrun with cats.
Some are kept in the offices upstairs, some sharing community spaces, and the operations director said their facility isn’t quite cutting it for the summer months.
To alleviate some of the pressure, the Humane Society is having a week-long adoption special.
The “Full Hearts, Empty Kennels” special will discount adoption fees for adult cats (6 months and older) and dogs (2 years and older) from $10 to $100.
“The bottom line is we’re full and we need the public’s help,” operations director Robert Jones said in a press release. “We ask the public to consider opening your hearts and home and help us empty our kennels.”
In a previous interview, Jones said July is typically the shelter’s busiest month since its peak kitten breeding season. He said the good weather Tacoma has enjoyed since about March contributes to breeding season.
Jones said the shelter has also experienced a higher number of dogs. Ideally, the shelter would have about 80 dogs and 160-170 cats.
“If we were in an ideal scenario, we would have a better sheltering environment so we weren’t having to have the animals kept inside all the time,” Jones said. “(This) is what our capacity is right now, but it’s not the most ideal space to be housing the animals.”
Jones said the humane society is looking into a better space in the future, but their priority is the care of the animals in their care.
Communication manager Victoria Gingrey said in an email that the number of animals that move through the shelter changes all the time, and currently it has over 100 cats, dogs and critters in the shelter.
“Ideal capacity is not having us at jam-packed levels — it’s where we are able to care for the animals and have room for the animals that are coming in and movement of animals without a lot of issues,” Jones said. “Now it adds a lot of extra stress because we’re basically having to move one animal out of a cage to move to its adoptable location and immediately cleaning that cage to have another animal come into it instead of giving us a little more time to work through the process with the animals.”
Jones said when the number of animals gets high, that’s when they have to start getting creative, like creating adoption specials.
Jones also said a lot of the animals come in from community members finding them and dropping them off, but the humane society has seen a decrease in animals brought in over the years. He said they attribute part of it to their efforts to educate the public about the importance of spaying and neutering pets.
The special at the humane society ends Aug. 24.
This story was originally published August 22, 2019 at 6:00 AM.