With businesses coming to a halt due to a citywide lockdown, essential employees are hard at work including animal shelter staff. Local animal shelters continue to be fully operational despite being closed to the public.
Three local shelters, Animal Defense League of Texas, City of San Antonio Animal Care Services and San Antonio Humane Society have continued day-to-day operations since closing their doors to the city
Since the Stay Home, Work Safe Order issued to residents, the opportunity to foster has become easier.
ACS announced on its Facebook page, within the month of March “over 600 Pets were adopted this month, 900 plus left with local Rescue partners, and 118 pets left with foster families.”
The staff of each shelter continue to provide attention and care to their animals. Both SAHS and ADL have temporarily stopped allowing volunteers to come in.
“We are taking all the necessary steps to ensure all pets are properly cared for whether they remain in the shelter or are placed in a foster home,” said Lucia Almanza, public relations associate of SAHS. “We will continue to monitor and re-evaluate the situation as we move forward.”
Although none of the shelters are aware of when they plan to reopen, they continue to work with limited staff.
“We recently decided to shift our operations to an emergency staffing status through April 19…currently, we have more than 40 pets in our shelter and more than 100 pets in foster care,” Almanza said. “We have temporarily stopped adoptions during this time until further notice.”
While SAHS stopped adoptions recently, ACS and ADL are still allowing the general public to enter the facility by appointment only to meet with their potential adoptees.
ADL’s executive director Joel McLellan released a statement on the organization’s Facebook saying, “After careful consideration and in adherence to the guidelines by the City of San Antonio, ADL programs are classified as “exempt” being that we provide essential services to vulnerable animal populations.”
“Potential adopters will now have to schedule an appointment with us online via our link saacs.info/adopt,” said Alfonso Rios, public information officer at ACS “Same thing goes for interested fosters. They must submit an application online…a foster team member will shortly then respond with an email stating their approval and get them started.”
Rios said staff continues to work while taking precautions to keep themselves safe while caring for the animals.
“We also have staff monitoring our kennel rooms to make sure people are keeping a distance of 6-feet apart from each other,” Rios said. “Families limit the amount of people they visit the shelter with, keeping the young and elderly at home.”
The staff are not only taking sanitary precautions but finding ways to continue their daily operations.
“We still have staff caring for our shelter pets, making sure their areas are being properly sanitized and that they have their doggy social time outside of their kennels daily,” Rios said. “We are still performing necessary surgeries and providing medical care for every pet that comes into our shelter.”
Shelters have recommended checking their social media outlets regularly for the most up-to-date information.
“We would like to thank every single person who has decided to adopt or foster during these times,” Amanza said “It is because of them that we have been able to be so successful and reach a 92% life release rate for this month.”
