About 15 shelters and organizations participated in a 3 day mega adoption event over the weekend that brought huge crowds to the Jacksonville Fairgrounds for Home For the Holidays, which featured pets from rescue groups and shelters operating across Northern Florida. PetSmart Charities and partner First Coast No More Homeless Pets joined with Jacksonville’s Animal Care and Protective Services Division (ACPS) and others to put on the event.
Participating rescues and shelters said the goal of the event was to reduce euthanasia rates and encourage the public to adopt not shop when bringing new pets into their homes.
A similar event at the Fairgrounds in July found homes for 946 pets. Rick DuCharme, executive director of First Coast No More Homeless Pets, said in a Florida Times-Union article that made it the largest adoption event ever held in the United States. About 8,000 people attended last weekend’s adoption extravaganza, a slightly smaller crowd than turned out for July’s event.
This past November marks a milestone for Jacksonville’s Animal Care and Protective Services Division, as its save rate for animals reached 92.1 percent, allowing it to record its first no-kill month ever. To qualify as “no-kill” a shelter must save at least 90 percent of the animals that come under its care. Animal services chief Scott Trebatoski told the Times-Union that Jacksonville is the largest city in the country to achieve a no-kill month. The 92.1 percent save rate is up from 28 percent four years ago. The agency deals with about 18,000 animals a year.
While the event fell short of its ambitious goal to rehome 1,000 of the available animals, organizers and participants were thrilled to see 803 cats and dogs find new homes. Animal care workers hope people will make their way to the shelters to adopt the 400 of so pets that did not find homes over the weekend.
PetSmart Charities set up a photo area where adopters could post for holiday photos with their new pets. We share a few of the photos here.
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