Dallas shelter at 140% capacity, extends adoption hours this Saturday

DALLAS - Dallas Animal Services is seeing an unusual spike in capacity for this time of year.

The shelter has 307 kennels that are currently filled with 516 dogs.

You don’t have to be a mathematician to see the problem. The shelter is at 140% capacity with as many as 50 to 100 new dogs are coming in every day.

It’s even more of a problem right now because part of the shelter will soon be closed as the floors are resurfaced. 

"We are having to have floors repaired in a whole bunch of rooms. And because of that, we have to empty those rooms completely out and we have to keep them empty for several days because of the fumes associated with the flooring repairs," said Mary Martin, the assistant director at DAS.

Martin said something’s got to give.

"We have to get them into homes, or we end up housing them in a way that is not as humane as we would like," she said.

DAS will host an event called Moonlight Muttness to try to alleviate the problem. It will stay open late Saturday night in hopes of creating more opportunities for people to add a new family member to their homes before Thanksgiving.

"We decided to try to stay open later to accommodate people who work or who for whatever reason can’t get here during our regular business hours," Martin said. "Our team will be here until 9 o’clock at night processing adoptions. The goal is to adopt. We’d love to adopt 100 animals in the day."

While the shelter’s capacity was trending downward last month, recent stormy weather created a spike in stray intake.

Martin hopes the Moonlight Muttness event, which runs from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Saturday, will help create an opportunity for people off work on Thanksgiving week.

"You cannot walk through this building and not fall in love," she said.

Those who are not sure if they are ready to adopt can also spend the holiday fostering a dog.