New to this-How does one find accepting shelters?

[tnrowell]

I have just joined. Am located in Louisiana half way between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. Our parish (county) has NO shelter at all. Does anyone have experience with or know of shelters willing to take animals from our state? My current situation involves several very young kittens. Thanks in advance and apologies for not knowing more.

[admin]

Hi there,

This is quite often the biggest issue.....finding others who are in a position to help you with the animals you need help for. There is a list of rescues and shelters on petfinder.com. You can also do a google search for cat rescue, dog rescue, specific breed rescue, etc. and just simply start networking. I would make certain that who ever replies to you has extensive references to offer......you do not want these animals going to a place you know nothing about and possibly ending up worse then before.

On our forum board under General Discussions, there have been a few rescues/shelters who have volunteered to take animals. Look through the posts under the topic there called "5000 animal transport week".

I wish there was an easy answer, and perhaps others can post some suggestions as well. As we all know, shelters and rescue groups are overflowing right now in certain areas and most intake groups in the southern states are at maximum capacity. Thank you for trying to help these babies!

Debi

[Jon]

Debi is the rescue side of this site, and I am the pilot side, but from my experiences this past year or two you are not looking for shelters as much as you are looking for rescues.

These are the kindest people in the world and they will pull animals scheduled for euthanasia and then work very hard to get them adopted or transported to areas where they can get adopted. If I were in your situation I would first attempt to locate every rescue within a reasonable distance from your location and ask them the questions you asked here. Often you can get a start on the listing on the internet and then by communicating with them learning of other rescues and fosters that may not have internet sites.

Take my advice with a grain of salt because I have a lot to learn about rescues.

[Joye]

Hi, I'm a rescue near Buffalo, NY and this greater area doesn't have a major dog population problem like it used to because everything (babies included) has left us sp/n for the past 5 years and the SPCA in Erie Co (Buffalo) has been doing this same thing for many years. It is the solution. However, the cat problem hasn't been touched in any area that I know of. We are offered about 20 a day and adopt out 1-2 a week. Sadly, I'd advise concentrating on getting your dogs out. Because of our decent dog population we do take from other areas when we run low on puppies or more adoptable dogs than the large black ones we seem to always have plenty of, but you are so far. We tend to take from OH and sometimes KY and TN, all very high kill states and we would never place a dog into those areas. I do receive several requests for help from all over the southern and mid-west states a week and there is often transportation provided so I know there are transports going all over the US every day of the year. I think Petsmartcharities.org has a transport mobile that does this routinely. My understanding is that they take from high kill states and move dogs to less densely populated states. I know they've transported to Buffalo. If you want to give me your e-mail address I can forward some of the requests for help that I do get and maybe that would lead you into a group that is already transporting. Please e-mail me direct, I may not check this again. Joye joyfulrescues@hughes.net www.joyfulrescues.com