BOONE, Iowa—Boone Area Humane Society is asking people to avoid surrendering healthy pets, following the guidance provided by the National Animal Care & Control Association (NACA). NACA is advising animal shelters to take extra measures to reduce shelter intake to mitigate the short and long-term effects of COVID-19.
Vanessa Heenan, Shelter Director at BAHS, said Animal Protection Officers will continue to answer high priority and emergency calls. Those calls include injured or sick stray animals, cruelty and neglect complaints, bite complaints, dangerous and aggressive dog complaints, and more. Heenan said, “We are asking owners who are not facing an immediate crisis to hold their pets for up to four weeks, and to surrender at a later date. For any pet owners who need to surrender immediately, we ask that they call the shelter first to schedule an intake time.”
“Our main focus at this point is on reducing the overall number of animals housed at the shelter,” Heenan said. “We’ve had fewer adoptions over the past 10 days and we anticipate that trend worsening. Because BAHS operates at or near capacity, reducing intakes and maintaining adoptions is essential to avoid overcrowding in the shelter.”
BAHS is encouraging people to still adopt animals. While the shelter is currently closed to visitors, potential adopters can call the shelter at 515-432-6112 or email them adopt.bahs@gmail.com at to set up an appointment to meet an animal they are interested in adopting.
Fosters needed: The shelter is also looking for around 20 “on call” emergency fosters, who can take home a pet if BAHS reaches critical capacity. BAHS will need fosters for all types of pets but housing for medium and large dogs and kittens will be most needed. BAHS provides vet care, crates, supplies, and food. People can sign up to be an on-call emergency foster caregiver by filling out the foster form at https://bahs.us/foster/.
For people who would like to adopt a cat, the shelter is also running a special on cats with adoption fees of just $15.
People who can’t adopt or foster can make a monetary donation at bit.ly/BAHS_donate. Critical items can also be purchased from the shelter’s Amazon wish list at bit.ly/BAHS_Amazon. Most needed items are kitten food, kitty litter and Purina Dog Chow.
The World Health Organization (WHO) released a statement saying there is no evidence that dogs or cats can be infected or could spread the virus that causes COVID-19.
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