The Animal Welfare League of Alexandria (AWLA) introduced in 50 cats Saturday, March 13 from 8 animal shelters in Texas nevertheless recovering from the devastating February snowstorms and subsequent power outages.
Quite a few of these Texas services are now suffering from a surge of surrendered pets, and by transporting animals who were being previously in these shelters to Virginia, these organizations can superior handle the continued have to have for care and guide even additional homeless animals.
“We obtained a request from the Human Animal Support Providers (HASS) countrywide community inquiring if shelters have been equipped to consider in homeless animals, to make place for Texas shelters to treatment for the inflow of animals they were being observing,” said AWLA Executive Director Stella Hanly. “We realized the strategies had been even now coming alongside one another, but we also understood we experienced to enable.”
The most important hurdle was making confident a motor vehicle could properly transportation that a lot of cats. While the AWLA owns several automobiles for day-to-working day shelter use, none is geared up with set cages for that a lot of animals. Fortunately, a single AWLA volunteer, a retired naval engineer, had the remedy, and in a make any difference of times, he made a removable rig that could be positioned in one particular of the AWLA’s vans that could accommodate journey crates for up to 50 cats. Two extra AWLA volunteers available up their time to make the 14-hour spherical vacation travel to Tennessee, where by they would meet up with with a HASS consultant to decide up the traveling cats.
“This mission was very the enterprise from the start,” mentioned Katie DeMent, AWLA’s director of
functions and liaison for this hard work. “In less than two months, we’d related with a Texas shelter liaison, worked with other area shelters and rescues to determine who could choose in cats, uncovered volunteers all set to take on this very long-haul generate and outfitted our van so we’ll also be equipped to use it to enable even extra animals in the future. We questioned a whole lot of our crew, but they all labored jointly so that we’ll be equipped to assist these Texas facilities and all of these homeless cats.”
In addition to facilitating the transportation, the AWLA served as a neighborhood hub to connect several of the cats with shelters and rescues in the location. Twenty of the cats, ranging from 6 months to 5 yrs old, stayed at the AWLA, exactly where they will go through typical and veterinary evaluation ahead of being built available for adoption.
The remaining 30 cats have long gone to other regional shelters and rescues, like the Animal Welfare League of Arlington, Loudoun County Animal Products and services, 4 Paws Rescue and Encouraging Homeless Felines. To see the cats introduced to the AWLA and learn how to fulfill them, either almost or in-man or woman, visit AlexandriaAnimals.org/Adopt.
Immediately after the return journey of extra than 7 several hours, transport volunteer Kerin Ord remarked, “Seeing cats in their condos at the AWLA, kittens enjoying with toys, a lot of cats just reaching out for pats and interest…They appeared to know that all was superior from listed here on, and with the resilience of animals, experienced immediately gotten over their prolonged journey.”
Alongside with transporting these 50 cats on March 13, the AWLA also took in 40 puppies of varying ages and breeds, doing work with Correct & Faithful Rescue Mission to aid underneath-resourced shelters in Florida and Texas. Like the 20 cats, these dogs will also be manufactured out there for adoption once they undertake health care and behavioral assessments.
Mar. 15, 2021
3:47 p.m.
