New Fort Worth Animal Shelter Already Full, In Desperate Need Of Fosters And Adopters

FORT WORTH (CBSDFW.COM) - Fort Worth's animal shelters are past the point of full.

Their North Animal Campus opened mid-April and it's already packed.

"We currently have a little over 1,000 animals in our care," said Jessica Brown, the Shelter Superintendent. "I mean in the summer we always see an increase of intakes, but this is way more than we've been seeing lately."

The goal of the shelter was to ease capacity at their main location, though it's quickly become a place to house the 50 to 100 animals brought in each day.

Each shelter is only built to hold 300.

"As the municipal shelter we take in every animal that comes to us so we don't have the option of turning animals away when we're full," Brown said.

In April and May combined, Fort Worth Animal Care and Control took care of 3,700 animals. That's a 35% increase from this time last year.

They blame it partially on breeding season, but they say, there's also a lot of folks surrendering dogs these days.

"We always need foster parents, large, medium and large dogs are most in need of fosters currently."

Staff is working to get them placed as quickly as possible, but say they urgently need fosters and adopters.

Their kittens and puppies go quick, but they remind you there's plenty of senior pets who need love too.

"Our south shelter was at about 119% capacity for dogs this morning, and 150% capacity for cats. We don't euthanize for space, but this is the point in time where we really need the community's help to make space for incoming animals."

Click here for more information on adopting or fostering a dog or cat.

All adoption fees are currently waived.