FROM THE HUMANE SOCIETY OF ELMORE COUNTY
HUGE thanks and a shout out to Heady Scoops and Smoothies for setting up at our Tail’s End Thrift Store on Saturday to sell Chicken Tacos and drinks! The Tacos were YUMMY to say the least, their crew was simply awesome, and it looks like they raised well over $1,000 for our animals! We are truly humbled that they wanted to do this for our Shelter and all the animals in our care. They have been wonderful supporters of ours for many years now and we ask everyone to please stop by their shop at 2872 US-231, Wetumpka to check out all the great stuff they have and thank them for being the huge animal lovers and shelter supporters that they are!
During the month of March our Shelter will receive $1 from every $2.99 Community Bag sold at our local Wetumpka Winn-Dixie, 5326 Highway 231 South, Wetumpka AL. So as we see a lot of folks shifting to reusable shopping bags, no better time than now to swing by Winn Dixie to pick up a bag or two or three.
One of the most frustrating things in the Shelter world is all the animals that come to us that no one ever reclaims. About 15% of dogs are reclaimed by owners and only about 1% of cats sadly. We are constantly screening the lost (and found) reports that have been called in to see if we might have a match as nothing makes us happier than reuniting a lost pet with its very relieved owner. We are also looking at all the lost and found pages on Facebook daily and the main one for our area is “Elmore County Alabama Lost & Found Pets.” We highly recommend that you post a lost pet to this page, your personal page and any neighborhood pages for your area as Facebook does truly help in reuniting lost pets.
Probably 90+% of pets coming into our Shelter have no collars and of those with collars only a small fraction have rabies or identification tags. When we get an animal in with a rabies or ID tag the very first things we do is call the veterinarian so they can help us get pet and owner reunited. And it does work – in most cases an animal with a tag can be reunited with its owner the same day. For those who say their pet loses their tags we highly recommend two other methods of identification – microchip and writing your phone number on your pet’s collar. We scan every animal coming into our shelter for a microchip. Microchips are placed by your veterinarian under the skin between the shoulder blades of your pet via a simple injection. If a pet has a microchip our scanners will pick it up, we then contact the chip maker who can then put us in touch with that pet’s owner – it works! Please contact your vet to ask about getting your pet micro chipped – it is simple and only takes a few minutes.
For those who find pets, the same applies – call us with the pet’s description as we have reunited many a lost and found pet without it ever coming into our Shelter. BUT – one very important thing is to take the found pet to the closest Vet or Shelter to be scanned for a microchip. All three Shelters in the River Region microchip our adopted pets so a quick scan can reunite a pet in no time.
And, very important, a found pet is not the finder’s to just keep or give away as, under law, any finder must do due diligence to find the proper owner. In all honesty this is why it can be best to bring a found pet to your supporting Shelter as we do this day in and day out and make sure to validate ownership before a pet is released. And sadly, some people can be, how shall we say – less than gracious about someone ‘finding’ their pet, so let us deal with those situations at the Shelter where we keep the identity of finders, owners and adopters confidential.
