With the kennels overflowing at the New Westminster Animal Shelter, it could be the purrfect time to add a four-legged friend to the family.
The animal shelter is on the hunt for new homes for the cats and dogs filling the kennels at its Queensborough facility.
“They are not going out faster than they come in,” said Nancy Millar, senior animal services officer. “It’s hard to get those numbers down.”
Six dogs are currently available for adoption, including Chihuahua/mini pincher cross, a Shih Tzu cross, a pit bull cross and a boxer/Ridgeback cross. Several of the dogs were among a dozen dumped at the shelter in the summer.
“The reason these animals are here is to begin with is because somebody dumped them,” Millar told The Record. “Pretty much every dog here is a dump.”
While people should do some research before getting a pet to ensure they get an animal that’s a right fit for their family, shelter staff know the animals’ personalities and can help make a match.
“We have about 20 cats – all ages, all shapes and sizes,” Millar said. “We have a couple of really long-term ones that are difficult to adopt.”
Surrounded by other cats, many of the animals are shy when they’re in the shelter but let their personalities show when they’re in homes. Some of their true personalities don’t shine through at the shelter, where a certain pecking order exists among the animals.
Zoe and Monkey are two of the shelter’s long-term tenants who would be pawsitively thrilled to find accommodations in a home with no other pets.
“They’d be much happier if they were out of here,” Millar said. “It makes them difficult to adopt. People see what they see here – it’s not who they are.”
The New Westminster Animal Shelter is currently home to so many cats that some have had to be placed in dog kennels.
“July and August are the number one moving days of the year,” Millar said. “They are also the number one dump-your-cat or leave-it-behind days.”
Meanwhile, an investigation is continuing into the dumping of 13 dogs outside the animal shelter in July.
“It is an offence to abandon an animal in our city,” Millar said. “No matter what the situation is – there are times people can’t keep them anymore – there are ways you can do that properly.”
The New Westminster Animal Shelter is located at 231 Ewen Ave.
