01/07/2026
This made our day - a shelter that put a program in place five years ago and the amazing results they have had. If you are a Richmond City (VA) resident and need financial help spaying or neutering your pet (we do NOT fix community cats), please reach out to us for help. Congratulations Clark County - you are about three years ahead of us - but we plan to follow in your footsteps.......
Educational Post
This is the result of a successful spay and neuter program after 5 years. An empty cat room- and this happens regularly.
We are NOT “limiting admission” or putting people on a wait list. We are taking in every animal that comes into our shelter as long as it is from a Clark County resident- that is what shelters are supposed to do. We are not altering data by diverting intakes or turning animals away. We are working hard to build programs that work to save animals and serve the community.
How is this possible without controlling intake?
1. Free and extremely low cost spay and neuter services that are readily available to everyone in our city and county. This includes owned animals and community cats or feral cats. Not a wait list, not a couple clinics a year. In the beginning we were booked out months at a time, now we can almost always get someone scheduled within 3 weeks or sooner. Progress. This is funded by grants and fundraising not the general shelter budget. The City of Wi******er, which is not our governing body, is gracious enough to provide funding towards this program (has ranged from $5-$17,000 over 6 years) and is to be used specifically for cats.
2. Safety net resources. A food bank, supplies and other resources that can help an owner that is temporarily struggling. We do not currently have assistance for owner vet bills but we regularly write grants and are trying to get that going too. Funded through donations.
3. A barn cat program. If a shelter doesn’t accept feral cats, those cats keep reproducing, become unhealthy due to inbreeding and lack or resources in the area and have poor quality of life and poor outcomes should they come to the shelter later. We have a list of people wanting barn cats so when a feral comes in, it is fully vetted and transferred to a new location where it is wanted within the week.
4. Rescue partners. In general, rescues love to work with a good shelter. A shelter they know is doing their best for the animals and giving honest evaluations on both health and behavior. We are very fortunate to work with some wonderful rescue partners with great adoption facilities to move a large number of our animals.
Animal shelters by design are reactive to the animal problem. But if we can see the bigger picture and create proactive policies that prevent more animals from needing to come to the shelter in the first place we can make a difference in the long run.
*There will likely be some comments asking why we don’t help other shelters when we have space. We are funded by tax dollars from Clark County so we are only able to accept animals from Clark County. We do offer to help by sharing resources, networking etc. We want all shelters to be successful!
**Update- due to the attention this post has gotten and the way Facebook sorts the comments we realize we are missing a lot of comments and questions. If you have questions please email us directly at [email protected] and we’ll be happy to get back with you!
