Avery County is the only county in North Carolina that has absolutely no animal services – no animal control officers, no shelter, and no private rescue shelter contracted to take animals. Here is what happens when a county has no animal services: Despite good anti-cruelty laws, with nowhere to place animals, police officers cannot enforce…
I always learn something at every shelter we visit, but at Moore County Animal Services, we saw an entirely different way of handling adoptions. The entire staff has completed the Fear Free shelter program. To minimize the stress on their dogs, they do not allow the public to tour the kennels to pick a dog….
Our 100th shelter visit was (appropriately) at CARA – Carolina Animal Rescue & Adoption, a private, nonprofit rescue in Sanford, North Carolina. CARA is tucked away on a wooded lot, beside a cement plant, which is perfect because they don’t mind noisy neighbors. The building is the old Lee County shelter, which morphed into a…
I just can’t wait to get on the road again. At this moment in history, so many shelters are in crisis. And not just in the south, although things are undoubtedly worse there than anywhere. Which is why I can’t wait to get down there to help in any way we can. Ever since my…
Tyrrell (pronounced like ‘turtle’ without the middle t) County is almost all the way to the Outer Banks. It’s another small county no one necessarily notices as they race to the ocean in their minivans stuffed with boogie boards and picnic coolers. There’s not a lot of money or industry, or, as it happens, cats…
Bertie County is a small county most people pass through on their way to vacation on the Outer Banks. The county’s tiny shelter is the next to last stop on a road that ends at the regional jail. The shelter sits on a property prone to flooding, and although the county has had plans to…
After a week in North Carolina visiting 6 shelters, we learned a lot. Despite now visiting over 100 shelters, each visit teaches me something new about the challenges of saving dogs in the south and/or reminds me of some of the solutions. As exhausting as it can be, every single trip reinforces why we go…
We leave next week for shelter tour. This time to Virginia and North Carolina – one of the notorious five states killing the most animals, according to Best Friends Animal Society, the unofficial leader of the No-kill movement. In North Carolina, unlike most states, the law requires that every county animal shelter report its numbers…
After visiting nearly 80 shelters and rescues, I can tell a lot about a shelter just by walking through their kennels. At Gaston County Animal Care and Enforcement, it’s pretty peaceful in their kennel rooms….
We leave for our shelter tour in two days. As always, I’m excited but nervous and slightly overwhelmed. There are so many details, so many new people, new places, and hundreds of miles to drive. Often when I reach out to a shelter director or Animal Control officer about a possible visit, they are skeptical….
