Winter usually brings a lull in animal sheltering, cats and dogs are less likely to have litters of newborns and its cold enough the strays aren’t wandering from home as often. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case this year. It’s February and we are busier than ever! We still have 114 animals in our care. Euthanasia’s are at an all-time high at other shelters across the state and country. As one of the few no-kill shelters in Nebraska, we help those other rescues when we have space, and right now, we don’t even have space. Our local intakes including owner surrenders are increasing and our adoptions are not matching that increase. Its creating a life-threatening situation for dogs and cats and we can’t just sit by and do nothing. It’s time we call on our community to help us through this chaotic winter and we know we have the best community around. There are even things you can do to help right from the comfort (and warmth!) of your own sofa!
Follow us on social media!
Follow other shelters too, even the shelters that are overfull and can’t reach our no-kill levels, everyone needs help right now. Share posts, and donate when you can, even if it’s a small amount, each share comment and donation mean that post reaches more people. If our post only has 10 shares, it may only reach 1000 people, and the dog’s perfect family may never know they even exist. If we have 100 shares or 200, even your coworkers will be gossiping about it, and everyone in town will know about our amazing animal making sure their perfect family can find them. When our reach gets that big, its easy to find forever homes. Our animals are great they just need help getting seen by the right people! Maybe your share will be the one that will reach just the right person to help the animal in need!
Volunteer!
Yes, you can do that from home! Sometimes we need volunteers to hand write thank you cards, or stuff envelopes, if you’re a computer whiz, we always need help with creating artwork for t-shirts, or fliers and postcards for education campaigns. We are also always looking for in person volunteers. We are currently revamping our dog walking program and hoping to get volunteers signed up to walk dogs weekly. It means so much to the dogs who get out of their kennels and get to be normal dogs for a while!
Did you know? We have a volunteer program for youth as well. Any children 13+ are welcome to come and volunteer with a parent or guardian. We love helping build young responsible animal lovers in our community! It is a great first step to demonstrating responsibility if your kids are begging for a new pet. Any children 15+ are welcome to volunteer without a parent, but we do require a parent or guardian join them for their first volunteer shift. This is a great way to help a college application stand out from others!
Foster!
Last year we helped 1195 animals find their forever homes, along the way many of those needed an extra helping hand. We sent 313 animals out to foster homes across southeast Nebraska. These foster pets spent time in foster homes to gain weight, overcome medical or behavioral problems or just to spend some time outside of the shelter. Some of those fosters fell in love and foster failed (the best kind of failure!!!) and but most came back to our shelter to finish their adoption journey right into their forever home. We provide all necessary supplies, leashes, collars, crates, carriers and food and litter (though some fosters like to donate the food and litter as a tax write off and we love that too!). We provide all medical care, and behavioral support for animals in our care. You provide the time, and love! Our fosters are vital to our ability to keep helping the youngest and most at risk animals in shelters, neonatal kittens and puppies. In shelter they are exposed to diseases and the stress of other animals and in foster homes they just flourish. Fostering is one of the most impactful ways children under 13 can get involved and help the shelter animals.
Our shelter is always looking for new and creative ways to partner with our community. If you have an idea for how you want to get involved that we didn’t cover here, reach out. Our shelter can’t continue to be the best one in Nebraska without you!
First Published in Beatrice Daily Sun:
https://beatricedailysun.com/news/opinion/busier-than-ever/article_5f37c89a-6222-5d28-a0f8-9de8c92f3272.html
