Pet Talk

    I think we’ve broken some kind of personal record. A total of 631 people have looked at our animals on Petfinder.com this week. That just blows my mind! It just goes to show you how much the Internet and other media help us get the word out to the public about what animals we have available for adoption. (A special thank you to the Houlton Pioneer Times for being the first and constant friend of the shelter for 26 years now!)
    Sites like Facebook, Petfinder.com, and our website, are useless if we don’t keep them updated on a daily basis and I just want to pass along a huge thank you to Heather Miller, Laura Marley and Cara Maples for all the work they do taking photos, updating all the sites, making posters for the stores, and making sure that our critters are in front of the public so that they have a better chance of adoption.
    This team, our staff, and our board of directors, have done a wonderful job this past year. Two hundred and ninety three animals have found new homes thanks to all the hard work and dedication and I have to tell you that a lot of time and effort has gone into saving these animals as well as networking with other shelters to help them place animals. 
    There are shelters who are not as fortunate as ours and they often have to euthanize for space. I think it’s to the credit of the director and her staff that they work so hard with other shelters to make sure that whenever we can help, we do help, and this past year fifty-one dogs were transferred in from other shelters and placed in new homes, 21 cats were transferred in and adopted and seven rabbits were re-homed thanks to this effort.
    The one thing that saddens me is that out of all the animals that came into the shelter last year, only 11 cats were returned to their owners and only 17 dogs were returned. I’m not sure I understand the reason for this. Why don’t people call the shelter when their cat or dog goes missing so we can notify you if your pet shows up at the Shelter? Why don’t people have license and rabies tags on their dogs so we can trace the dogs back to their owners? Can anybody explain this to me?
    My little Scruffy would run in a heartbeat. He loves to run and if he were loose he’d be down the road in 30 seconds flat. My Shannon was the same way and several times Shannon escaped her fenced back yard. I called the police, then animal control, then the local Shelter, and within hours Shannon was back home to me.
    So I guess I don’t understand why we have over 100 dogs come into the Shelter and only 17 of them either had identification or the owners came looking for them.
    So today my message is this, please license your dog, you only have till the end of January to do that before you have to pay a fine. Make sure the tags are on your dog, and consider putting a break-away collar on your cat with tags if you let your cat outdoors, or better yet, have your pet micro-chipped. Keep checking Facebook, the website, and Petfinder.com if you are interested in adopting and please support your local shelter or rescue, wherever you may be, so they can help find homes for these animals quickly.