Tuscaloosa Metro Animal Shelter hosting adoption event to clear shelter

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. (WBRC) - The Tuscaloosa Metro Animal Shelter is dealing with a problem several shelters in Alabama are seeing, and that’s overcrowding.

The shelter is offering $10 adoptions from Friday until this Sunday, thanks to the Bissell Pet Foundation, who is sponsoring this Empty the Shelter event.

On top of limited space, the Tuscaloosa Metro Animal Shelter is getting a lot of injured and sick animals. The average adoption fee is usually $100. The program manager said a dog hit by a car was dropped off recently. Surgery for that dog cost them $2,400, which they wouldn’t be able to pay for without community donations.

Also on some weeks, the shelter can get 20 to 30 cats and dogs on a single day, just to give you an idea of how busy it gets.

“So you reach that point where you’re getting a lot animals out, and you are no longer euthanizing for space. But people see that and think ‘oh it’s safe for me to drop off my animal there’ and then your intake increases and it puts us in a bind. We’ve gotten a lot of injured animals lately. If people really want to help out, fostering would be a big help to us,” said Thomas Sahm, Office and Program Manager.

Since WBRC’s report last month on the shelter, the programs manager said they did see more people volunteer to foster, but they always could use more.