By: Lydia Crawley
The Parsons Advocate
The Tucker County Animal Shelter has announced that it will waive adoption fees on its animals through the end of July. If successful, the program may be extended. The measure is a response to a recent animal housing crisis shelters across the area are facing.
Tucker County Animal Shelter Director Stacey Canfield made the announcement at the Tucker County Commission meeting July 9th.
“Because we are full, we are doing waived adoption fees through the end of July,” Canfield said.
Canfield said she understands that the move may spark controversy with some in the community questioning how the facility will continue to spay/neuter animals if they are not collecting adoption fees. However, Canfield said that it is a bigger hit to the facility to keep caring and feeding animals in the facility that are not getting adopted out.
“It is a big hit when we don’t get any adoption fee to help us with the costs, but we’re putting way more into animals to just keep them there and continue to feed them and booster them and do all that then we are just adopting them out with a waived adoption fee,” Canfield said.
Canfield said the purpose of the program was to assist those who may have been on the fence about adoption, but the cost of the fee has been what has been holding them back.
“Everybody deserves somebody and if an adoption fee is what is holding some people back, we can fund raise and we can step up and do what we need to do to help these animals and to help these people,” Canfield said.
Canfield said if the program is successful, there is a possibility it may be extended.
“Now through the end of July to see how it is going to go, if we have some success, we are going to continue to lengthen that out,” Canfield said.
