What to Know
- The Animal Care & Control Team of Philadelphia says its dog kennels are at full capacity.
- To encourage adoptions, the shelter is hosting their “Philly Special”: pay-what-you-wish adoption fees for large dogs till the 30th.
- Both locations — in Philadelphia and Plymouth Meeting — are encouraging adoptions all day Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
Their staffers have worked overtime, their partner organizations have offered assistance and their volunteers are doing everything in their power to help the dogs they care for.
But the Animal Care & Control Team of Philadelphia (ACCT Philly) dog kennels are at full capacity, with risk of euthanasia on the horizon.
This weekend, they’re asking the community for help.
Because it’s an open-admission, city-contracted animal shelter, the organization cannot turn away stray or surrendered pets — even when space is severely limited. So if animals arrive faster than the shelter can find homes for them, the population becomes increasingly difficult to manage.
ACCT Philly has received a little over 4,000 dogs so far in 2018. 547 dogs came into the shelter during September alone.
Those intake numbers haven’t been met with equally high adoption rates.
Audra Houghton, Interim Executive Director of ACCT Philly, says her staff and volunteers have been doing everything they can, but it hasn’t been enough.
“We desperately need people to open their homes to a homeless dog,” Houghton said.
The shelter’s medical director also said they’ve exhausted their final options for space management. It’s no longer sustainable for the shelter, or healthy for the animals, to house so many residents.
This leaves ACCT Philly with some difficult decisions.
“We hate having to consider euthanasia as an option for our animals,” says Houghton. “We fight to avoid it at all costs.” At the same time, she adds, “We are so full that we are at the point of needing to euthanize for space.”
She’s hoping, instead, that the community will step up to care for animals in need. To encourage this, the shelter is offering pay-what-you-wish adoption fees for dogs weighing more than 35 pounds from now through Sunday, September 30.
In their own words, they’re playing the Philly Special — except their version is 4th down-and-50 (dogs).
Pay-what-you-wish adoptions are taking place at both ACCT Philly’s main shelter and their Everyday Adoption Center (EAC). For more information on their work and on how you can adopt a pet, visit their website here.
