Pet Food Chain Helps Out San Francisco Animal Shelter

SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) --- Dogs, cats, and other family pets have been hit especially hard by the economy with more people forced to give up their pets when household money runs out.

Alameda's Animal shelter is relying on fundraisers to keep its doors open. The Valley Humane Society in Pleasanton is surviving week to week, largely through the kindness of strangers, and San Francisco's Animal Care & Control Shelter is no different, struggling to pay the bills as it takes in more and more animals, adopting out fewer and fewer.

A pet food chain store is helping one Bay Area shelter find home for abandoned cats and kittens.

KCBS' Rebecca Corral Reports:

"In the last couple of years we've seen an uptick in the number of owners having to surrender their animals due to the economy and somewhat of a flatlining of adoptions," said Rebecca Katz, the director of Animal Care and Control.

So Katz said for the first time ever they're opening up a satellite adoption center inside the Petfood Express Store on Market Street.

She said some people are fearful about going to public shelters to adopt animals because they're uncomfortable with the idea of desperate dogs and cats barking and screeching for attention, and she thinks perhaps the warm environment at PetFood Express will invite more adoptions.

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