When scrolling through social media, have you come across a picture showing a dog in need of a home? What do you do? Do you choose to keep scrolling or do you maybe post it on your story or share it with your friends? The Stanislaus county shelter has been overwhelmed with the amount of dogs coming in. 

For the past years, They have been overstimulated by the amount of dogs who need a place to stay. The process when they find a dog is to first check for a chip. If the dog isn’t chipped they will begin to chip and put the dog on hold in case an owner comes in. They have a website, listed below by the picture, and on this website they have a system. The amount of time that the dogs stay is monitored. If a dog has a “red” status then they have been at the shelter for an extended period of time. If a dog has a “yellow” status they have exceeded 14 days. They have more than 50 dogs who have a “red status” and 20 dogs who have a “yellow status”. 

I stopped by and talked to Victoria, a staff member who works there. 

What is one thing people can do if they can’t adopt?

I would say if they can’t make a long-term commitment they could always foster, we pay for everything, spay and neuter them, they’d just have to house the animal for us until they’re ready to be adopted. People can always pay an adoption fee so that maybe someone else who can’t pay can adopt. Also just donating things to the shelter to enrich the animals, you know, toys, blankets and things like that.

What happens when a dog exceeds red status? 

We have a really good rescue support team that is really good about getting dogs out to the public and sharing them on social media, so usually we get them adopted or sent to rescues.

What’s the day in the life of a shelter dog?

Essentially, they get fed in the morning, most of them get to go outside for a little bit, as much as possible we try to get them outside for pictures and videos, just as much enrichment as we can. Unfortunately they do hang out in their kennels a lot but whenever possible we do let them outside.

What donations do you need? 

We would probably like donations of any enrichment activity like puzzles or anything like that to enrich the dogs lives more just because it can be hard on them to hang out in their kennels without a lot of enrichment, so it would be helpful to have puzzles for them.

What is one thing you’d like to spread awareness about? 

The main thing is spaying and neutering, a lot of people in the Central Valley either don’t have the resources for it or aren’t super educated on why it’s beneficial and unfortunately a lot of ppl don’t spay and neuter their dogs and in a few years all those puppies end up in the shelter and pile on hundreds on hundreds. We just don’t have room.

Where do you get the funding to take care of the dogs?

A lot of our funding comes from donations and the county. We have events to spread awareness and get more donors. We mostly rely on those donations so anything really helps.

One thing in particular Victoria shed light on was fostering. When fostering, the shelter pays for any expenses, like vaccinations, food, chipping, etc. The only thing needed from a foster person (idk what to call it um um um!) is a place for the animal to go. Not only do they have dogs but they also have cats. 

Not only do dogs better mental health but they bring productivity. Next time, instead of thinking of buying a dog, try adopting.