ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. – Orange County Animal Services has reportedly become “overwhelmed” with dogs after resuming its normal intake of strays. The shelter is urging the community to adopt, foster and attempt to reunite said dogs with their owners.
It reportedly took about a week for things to come to this, according to OCAS. Starting Sept. 7, the shelter said it had been turning dogs away due to an outbreak of the canine pneumovirus, and normal operations restarted last week.
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In that first week of accepting stray dogs once again, 158 were received from Oct. 30 to Nov. 5, with 40 dogs received on Monday alone, according to the shelter.
As OCAS seeks to get results for the more than 200 stray dogs now in its care, adoption fees are waived for dogs deemed “ready to go,” i.e. ones that have been spayed or neutered, as well as vaccinated and microchipped.
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Diane Summers, OCAS manager, made mention in a news release of the shelter’s new intake diversion program, unveiled last week and designed to match struggling pet owners with community resources in order to keep their pets out of the shelter.
“For some pet owners the option to keep the pet wasn’t possible, so there’s a line forming of owned dogs needing to come into the shelter that we won’t be able to help until our dog population is more manageable,” Summers said in a statement.
Should you ever come across a stray dog, Summers urges you to try to locate its owner before bringing it to the shelter.
“In reviewing our data, we discovered the majority of lost pets were within one mile of home,” Summers said in the release. “Taking the time to post flyers, post on social media, have the pet scanned for a microchip, can make all the difference in getting that pet back home, and quickly.”
Learn more about the shelter by visiting its website.
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