Last year, there were 493 animals cared for, 471 adoptions, three redemptions that were returned home safe, 21 rescues, seven TNR cats and five that died from an illness or injury. The shelter had a 1% DOA/euthanasia rate for the whole year, which includes one that passed away from natural causes and severe injury.
Although many animals were saved, there were a few “hiccups” the shelter ran into in 2023, Hawke said.
They had nine hoarding cases of cats and dogs, who needed extra medical care, time to socialize, and acclimate to new surroundings and people.
Hawke said this caused a longer length of stay at the SPCA for them to recover from illness, injury and lack of socialization, and increased medical expenses for surgeries, medications and repeated vet visits.
“The longer a pet is with us and not into it’s forever home, the less pets we can help in our community due to a limited amount of space in our tiny shelter,” she said.
There were more animals, not just from hoarding cases, that had extended stays because adoptions were down, some pets staying over six months. This caused cage space to be occupied and not able to save more pets. Hawke said this was “something very new to us and not something we anticipated.”
Credit: Bill Lackey
Credit: Bill Lackey
For 2024, the organization has a few goals:
-Build up their foster home base for hoarding cases and everyday intake of stray and unwanted pets to help more animals in the community. The SPCA provides everything needed by the foster home such as crates, food, litter and all medical care.
-Offset additional medical expenses by coming up with more types of fundraisers and community functions that get them out in public more and bring awareness to the SPCA.
-Have their Facebook family share their adoptable pet posts more often and find new ways of getting those animals forever homes.
“We have faith that building our network of volunteers and foster homes, creating new fundraising ideas, and getting our Facebook Family more involved in sharing our posts, spreading the word of events, sponsoring adoption fees and cheering us on, will make 2024 our best year yet,” Hawke said.
A few people took to the post to comment about the SPCA’s results.
“Thank you to all the people and businesses that made this possible. Forever grateful,” Tonna Brown commented.
“Thank you for all you continue to do,” Ellen Mowry said.
For more information about the organization or to adopt, visit www.clarkcountyspca.org/.
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