MCACC Pawsome Newsletter May Highlights

Hello Subscriber,

Our biggest news this month is that the Board of Supervisors has approved funding and forward movement on building a new East Valley shelter. This is a huge win for the animals and animal lovers of Maricopa County and for all of us here at MCACC. While a lot has already been done in previous years to develop architectural plans for a new facility, there is still a lot more work to do but we couldn’t be more thrilled.    We do know that this new facility will be located in Mesa at Baseline Road and Lewis Drive, where the county already owns the land. It will replace the current shelter at Rio Salado and the Loop-101, which is showing its age and is due for replacement. Over the years, the successes celebrated at the East shelter are attributed to the dedication of staff, public support, and the hundreds of volunteers who selflessly spent thousands of hours in the shelter to help these homeless pets. We have not yet received a timeline for the project but will communicate as soon as we know more. This is super exciting news and a great time to be a part of the MCACC community.

While we are celebrating the announcement of a new shelter facility coming to the East Valley, we must still weigh the good with the not-so-good, and one challenge this month has been our increased intake of pets in need. As part of managing our capacity constraints at our West shelter, we have placed a limited number of dogs at our East shelter where we are currently offering adoptions this week Wednesday – Sunday. In addition, our foster program saw a huge spike in demand due to kitten and puppy season. We are grateful now more than ever for our fosters, volunteers, and partners who have stepped up to help support us in so many priceless ways. MCACC continues to search for the best possible outlets for our shelter pets every day, including working with our partners and future Bissell Pet Foundation Empty the Shelters adoption events.

With gratitude,

Robyn Jaynes, DVM
Director

Photos: Header - a pet parent is reunited with her lost dog at our West shelter.
Dr. Jaynes with her office dog and puppies. 

PROVIDING SECURITY FOR YOUR LOVED FAMILY PET All shelters are equipped with microchip scanners and returning lost pets to their families is the happy ending we all hope for. Upon intake, our admissions staff immediately scans each stray pet that comes through our doors. Often, we are lucky and can contact the owner right away, but many times pets do not have a microchip, license nor any ID on their collar, or a collar at all. That’s why all dogs that leave our shelter are spayed and neutered, vaccinated, microchipped, and have a secure collar with license tag attached. Licensing and microchipping provide peace of mind and safety for your loved family member.

When you license your dogs (which is required by state law), that license fee comes directly back to MCACC to help us keep our shelter doors open and our Animal Control Officers (ACOs) in the field helping homeless pets in our communities. When one of our ACOs finds a loose pet, the first thing they do is try to scan for a microchip - sometimes it is then possible to immediately contact the owner and return the pet without them ever having to step a single paw inside the shelter! Even if your pet's collar and tags fall off, there is still a much better chance of your pet returning home to your family if they have a microchip. 

In May, we reunited 254 dogs with their owners, and many of our shelter supporters play a large role in making this process successful. Two Pups Wellness Fund provides microchips for the Return to Owner pets that come into our shelter. Lost Dogs Arizona supplies thousands of collars each year to ensure that all dogs leaving the shelter have a collar to attach their license tag. Also, our friends over at Max and Neo help support our collar distribution with their One for One Donation program of martingale collars.

Photo: Benito and Stella are reunited at our West shelter after she was lost. 

WHY SHOULD I LICENSE MY DOG?

There are many benefits to licensing your pet. For more details click on the image below. 

SUPPORTNG OUR COMMUNITY Our Pet Help program has launched a new pilot program called Last Litter. This new initiative strives to help pet owners with unexpected litters. MCACC will waive the intake fees for the surrendered litter, alter them, and adopt them through our shelter processes. Pet Help works to coordinate free spay/neuter surgery for the litter’s mother and any other remaining pets in the resident’s household. For more information please contact our Outreach Coordinator at 602-526-0320 or ACCPetHelp@maricopa.gov

Fix Adopt Save sponsored a Double Mobile clinic in May, which allowed us to partner with two veter, MASH (Mobile Animal Surgical Hospital) and Purrfurred Pets. We were able to serve 60 pets (48 dogs and 12 cats) through this combined effort! Special thanks also to our friends Breta and Hazel from REACT AZ for helping check in our guests, and our own Outreach Coordinator, Cierra, for continuing to organize these events for the families and pets of our community.

In addition, Dr.Kelly's mobile vet clinic helped us with another Spay/Neuter clinic also sponsored by Fix.Adopt.Save. We were able to alter 29 pets: 11 cats and 18 dogs, and microchip 27 pets (2 dogs were already microchipped). That makes and total of 89 pets altered for the month of May. 

On May 30th, Pet Help and Community Canine Project (CCP) volunteers handed out 1,000 flyers in targeted residential areas detailing Pet Help’s free services. “Thank you everyone at Pet Help for your essential services that provided my little fur girl with a free spay. I will be forever mindful and grateful for your dedicated staff and excellent medical work that is available to our communities.”.

PARTNERS HELPING US PLACE PETS

The BISSELL Pet Foundation (BPF) once again stepped up to help us find loving homes for many of our shelter pets. During the May 5-9th, five-day event at two locations, 112 dogs and 9 cats were adopted through this generous sponsorship! As always, all adoptable pets available during this promotion were microchipped and spayed/neutered to prevent further pet homelessness. In 2016, BPF created this sponsored adoption event to make an immediate impact on the nation's ongoing pet homelessness problem. Since then, this program has encouraged prospective pet owners to consider adoption as their first option when bringing a pet into their family, as there are so many deserving animals waiting to be loved. An astounding number of 49,360 pets have found homes from this program’s efforts.

Our friends at Community Tires Pros continue to support adoptions, sponsoring 10 adoptions per month at our West shelter. One lucky pup was Clementine, who was found as a stray and brought to our shelter by the person who found her. The finder requested to be notified if Clementine wasn’t claimed by an owner. Luckily for both of them, Clementine was available for adoption after her stray hold and went home soon afterwards with the person that found her. She now is spayed, chipped and has a license to start her adventure with her new family.

For more details on our intake and adoptions, please visit our website.

PUP-FILES Worthington was a very fearful dog during his stay with us at the shelter. Our behavior team worked with him so that he was able to warm up to humans and helped him improve his social skills. At the time of his adoption, he still did not tolerate any touch, but with patience, love and understanding, Worthy has blossomed with his adopted family. We received this update in May about Worthy’s progress… “Worthy joined us for his first big road trip to several national parks in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. He was absolutely amazing in the hotels, learned he loves snow and water, and generally realized how great it is to be a pup! He even navigated walking around city streets and eating with us on restaurant patios. He's already learned many commands and is just the goodest boy ever!”

HEROES NEEDED

Did you know that every time you adopt or foster from MCACC you're saving two lives? Every homeless cat or dog that leaves our shelter makes room for us to save another from the streets. As summer heats up, there are more pets in need of loving homes than ever, and there's no better time to adopt or foster!

We're in need of foster homes for large dogs (40lbs+) with at least a two week commitment. Learn more and sign up to foster at pets.maricopa.gov

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