Overcrowded North Texas animal shelters offering adoption discounts
Both Collin County and Dallas Animal Services are cutting their adoption prices.
Both hope to free up some room after taking in more dogs and cats than they have space for.
Collin County’s animal shelter is at 125% capacity, so it dropped its adoption fee for dogs and cats to $10 through Friday. With Dallas Animal Services at 107% capacity, the fee for dogs was cut entirely until Friday.
Adoptions tend to slow down in the summer, while the birth of puppies and kittens typically increase. It’s a combination that forced Dallas Animal Services to make difficult decisions last week.
“We don’t like to euthanize a healthy adoptable animal just because of space,” explained Whitney Hanson, the manager for DAS. “We try our best to avoid, but it’s something we have to do sometimes. Last week was one of those times.”
But cutting out the $45 adoption fee for dogs has had an impact.
“We got 362 animals out over last three days,” Hanson said. “I can’t think of a weekend more successful than Clear the Shelter a year ago.”
Hanson said the shelter still needs a lot of loving homes, including foster homes for kittens that are still too young for adoption.
DAS is the fourth largest animal shelter in the country and takes in 40,000 animals a year. This is the final year of the city’s free spay neuters in certain zip codes.
Hanson said he's starting to see more dogs altered when they come into the shelter but the city still has a lot of work to do.