While One Shelter is Full, the SPCA Has Space

LYNDHURST,Va. (WHSV) -- One local animal shelter battles over-crowding while another has empty cages.

It's a perpetual problem this year for the Shenandoah Valley Animal Services Center.

"We have to keep the animals moving out of our door, in order to continue to be able to take them in and keep our euthanasia numbers low," said Lauren Maddox, with the Shenandoah Valley Animal Services Center.

The center is open admissions which means it has to take any animal at any time for any reason, and it's full.

Meanwhile, the Augusta Regional SPCA has space.

Empty cages from when it operated as the area's open admissions pound.

The SPCA's director, Debbie Caywood, said they may have the space, but they don't have the budget to fill it.

"You can fill it up with dogs, but you've got to be able to have the money to pay staff to clean it, and you've got to work within a boundary. There's only so many adoptable homes in an area," said Caywood.

Records show in 2012, the SPCA pulled 83 dogs from the animal services center and so far this year, 29.

According to numbers supplied by Caywood about 15 percent of the SPCA's animals from other shelters last year came from the local pound in Lyndhurst.

"Even though we may not pull a lot of animals directly from the pound, we still service our community, and owner-release animals come here instead of going to the pound," said Caywood.

She said requirements from their "Rescue Waggin" program with PetSmart limits them as to what animals they can pull from the shelter bringing animals in and sending them out around the state and even North Carolina.

"If we want to adopt as many animals as we can, we have to look at what animals we can place outside the community, because the community can only absorb so many animals into their household, " said Caywood

One thing the shelter and the SPCA agree on, spaying and neutering your pets is the best way, they say, to control overpopulation and unwanted pets.



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