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How are they achieving this?
Brandywine Valley SPCA has implemented numerous programs so that 95% of animals that enter the open-admission shelter find homes! And because cats are euthanized twice the rate of dogs, the nonprofit organization has been doing something called "trap, neuter and return," also known as TNR. TNR helps advocates safely and humanely trap the felines, the vets then spay and neuter them before they return back into the community. This process has saved the lives of feral cats that would otherwise be euthanized.
Brandywine Valley SPCA also has open adoptions in which don't require time-intensive applications. This helps move animals more quickly through the shelter.
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Brandywine also hosts two “mega-adoption events” each year
"They are weekend-long events where we adopt out over a thousand animals in two days," Linda Torelli, director of marketing for the Brandywine Valley SPCA, said. "It's an amazing experience. It's really something to see."
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There is a myth that shelter pets are "broken" and Torelli is here to break that myth:
"There's a long list of reasons why great pets end up in shelters," said Torelli. "I'd encourage people to have an open mind of the kind of animals you're going to find in a shelter. In most cases, you're going to find what you're looking for."
Often animals wind up in shelters through no fault of their own: an owner dies and no one in the family can take the pet, someone with allergies moves into the home (which there soon might be a vaccine for), or the owner gets sick and moves to a facility that doesn't allow pets.
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This is huge for the Delaware and we hope to see other states reach the same achievement!
Chief mission officer for Best Friends Animal Society, Holly Sizemore, said Delaware's achievement is the big step toward creating a no-kill America by 2025.
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