TUSTIN, California (KABC) — An online petition calling for Orange County Animal Care to resume public visits without appointments is gaining momentum.
Misty wasn’t the fur Baby Margot Boyer was looking for.
“She had two huge hernias that were almost on the floor as she walked and you could tell she was quite old,” Boyer said.
Grieving the loss of her Chihuahua, Boyer went to OC Animal Care, or OCAC, in search of a younger, healthier dog. Boyer said if she had seen Misty online she would never have chosen her.
“But she looked at me, trotted off a bit and licked my hand a bit and that was it,” Boyer said.
Boyer says that face-to-face meeting saved her Misty. She wanted other, perhaps less desirable dogs, to have the same opportunity and organized this petition on Change.org asking the shelter to return to visits with no appointment requirements. Boyer decided to collect the signatures after learning that the shelter had euthanized 28 dogs in just over six weeks in June and July.
The agency’s deputy director Monica Schmidt said they don’t claim to be a no-kill shelter.
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Schmidt said that since she took on this role in 2019, dogs here have only been humanely euthanized due to behavioral or medical issues.
“As a municipal shelter, one of the things we are charged with is public safety and animal welfare and that means our team often has to make critical and important decisions that sometimes involve euthanasia,” said Schmidt.
In 2019, the OCAC changed its approval process due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Interested visitors have since required an appointment with a dog they have chosen online. Walk-ins can reserve a spot on the lobby desktop.
The staff here said they have kept this model because it has resulted in fewer dogs returning. According to Schmidt, the adoption return rate for the most recent quarter, April-June 2022, was 6.6 percent and 7.7 percent for the time in 2019, prior to adoption by appointment.
Amy Hernandez is at OCAC Adoptions and an office supervisor.
“We’re able to really, you know, dive deep into the animal. It’s the behavior and if it does that with other dogs or with children, because we want to remember that adopting an animal should never be something impulsive. ” said Hernandez.
Karen Vaughn, who said she’s volunteered at the shelter for four years, said she’s seen the appointment system hurt dogs’ chances of finding forever homes, with families often turned away.
“We currently have eight dogs that have been there for over a year since last week and this has increased their stress, they don’t interact with people. Some of the dogs I know personally have gone a week or more without even giving a damn. being walked in a yard or able to walk,” Vaughn said.
Schmidt assured Tuesday that there were plenty of appointment slots and said the new system has not affected the savings rate of adult dogs.
According to statistics on the OCAC website, the savings rate for adult dogs has remained in the mid-90s before and after the implementation of the new model.
A closer look showed that the adoption rate of adult dogs fell by nearly 10 percent last year compared to 2018, while the percentage of these dogs transferred to other agencies nearly doubles when comparing 2021 to 2018.
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