INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Indianapolis Animal Care Services announced a plan Wednesday to address its high pet population.
The shelter is currently operating well above its care capacity and has been for years. This reality means many animals, specifically dogs, are housed in offices, hallways, and any other open space within the shelter.
“It’s just not feasible for our staff to keep up with that,” Colleen Walker, IACS public information officer, said. “Honestly, it’s really not that great for our animals to be in these crates.”
The plan hopes to decrease the population to 80% capacity and remain under the 100% threshold at all times, which would be about 166 dogs. The shelter has been operating on an emergency-intake basis since early September.
The plan is not only aimed at addressing the population concerns, though.
By focusing on increasing diversion, the shelter says its staff will have more bandwidth to care for animals in the shelter.
Diversion involves pouring resources into owners to ensure animals remain in their care and out of the shelter.
“When animals come here and people can’t keep them, we’re trying to divert those from the shelter,” Walker said. “That means having a conversation with these people and asking them if there’s anything that we can do to help them keep that animal in their home. “
Walker also said their team hopes this will leave enough room in the shelter in case of any necessary large scale impounding.
A key part of the overall plan involves increasing rescue partnerships across the central Indiana region.
“We have our rescue coordinator,” Walker said. “By sending dogs out to rescues we’re trying to expand that, having new relationships with different rescues.”
Each of these steps will make sure every animal receives the proper housing and care. This concern is something former IACS employees Kylee Fox and Makenna Chiddister have been sounding the alarm on.
“I would say, 20%, maybe, of the animals have some sort of issue that’s going untreated, or just being ignored,” Fox said.
The plan also rolls out a policy on euthanasia. According to the shelter, the option may be considered once all other possibilities have been exhausted.
Chiddister says there was not a clear policy in the past.
“When there’s a better chance, or there’s a higher chance that a dog’s going to pass away in its kennel, because of its age and being adopted, but, then they’re going to euthanize a one year old puppy…It just doesn’t make sense,” Chiddister said. “There needs to be a policy in place.”
IACS says they don’t have an exact timeline they plan to have their population under control. They plan to make steady progress over time.
The shelter currently has 189 dogs and 15 cats ready for adoption. They encourage anyone interested in adoption to visit the shelter any day between 10 a.m. and 5:30 p.m.
