Lethbridge animal shelter temporarily suspends intake of healthy animals

A dog is seen at Lethbridge's Community Animal Services. (CTV News)

LETHBRIDGE, ALTA. -

An increase in animals, limited shelter space and a slow rate of adoption have caused Community Animal Services to temporarily suspend the intake of healthy animals at the shelter.

“The amount of animals that are getting claimed from shelters – and it's certainly not just us, you see the numbers across the board – has gone down a lot so people aren't coming for their pets anymore,” said Skylar Plourde, director of services and enforcement with Community Animal Services.

With 30 dogs and nearly 90 per cent of kennel space for cats filled, the animal shelter is above capacity.

On Aug. 1, the shelter announced it would only be accepting emergency intake for the time being.

Plourde says before the COVID-19 pandemic, dogs would only stay in the shelter for about three to five days, whereas now it’s between three to five weeks.

“We did see a pretty significant spike in June and July of animals coming in and not getting claimed,” he said. “A lot of those being young, juvenile animals or senior animals with health issues.”

Plourde says shelters across the country have been at capacity since the pandemic. He says the slow adoption rate is just one of the driving factors.

“There’s a lot of unchecked animal breeding going on and the brakes need to be applied there,” Plourde explained.

“The market of pets is already over saturated, if someone is breeding dogs thinking they’re going to make some money off of it, it's not going to happen.”

Often stray animals are not far from home, so Plourde is asking anyone who finds a missing pet to knock on doors in the area, post on social media or put up posters to try and find the owners before calling the shelter.

“There's lots of neighbourhood community Facebook pages, lost-and-found pet groups, posting on there and checking those are honestly the quickest way to reunite a lost pet with its owner,” he said.

Plourde is hoping to have a few pets adopted in the coming days, opening space for more strays.

But in the meantime, he says registering pets, microchipping them and making sure they wear a collar are key to bringing them home.

“Emergency space is available for emergency situations or possible dangerous animal situations where something needs to be quarantined or seized, there has to be spaces at the shelter so that's a part of where our capacity levels are set,” Plourde added.