Visalia Animal Services is celebrating Clear the Shelters with a week-long event of adopting out spayed and neutered dogs, for free.
Clear the Shelters is a now larger than nationwide day, presented by VIP Pet Care, PetCo and NBC Universal. Now extending outside of the US, NBC and Telemundo owned stations are team up with hundreds of shelters to host a pet adoption drive on Saturday, August 19 to help find loving homes for animals in need. More than 50,000 pets found their forever homes last year.
This is the first year participating for Visalia Animal Services, said Ivy Ruiz, Animal Services supervisor. After all, the shelter is brand new.
“We’re very excited about it,” Ruiz said.
The Visalia shelter can handle up to 100 dogs and 100 cats, although it currently houses few felines. Dogs come in, in all shapes and sizes from Chihuahua mixes to terriers, shepherds to bully-breed mixes, terrier mixes, and everything in between. The shelter serves to house strays picked up within Visalia, as well as the city of Dinuba.
“The shelter maintains approximately 50-65 [dogs] on a weekly basis,” Ruiz said. “Depending on the time of year, sometimes we care for more as our shelter can hold up 100.
“We anticipate having approximately 25 dogs available for the Clear the Shelters event. However, that could vary, because it is possible that the animals we prepared for the event be adopted before the event.”
The shelter will hold its local Clear the Shelters event for more than just one day, but from Saturday, August 19 – Sunday, August 27. All dogs will have been spayed or neutered, vaccinated and microchipped. All adoption fees will be waived during this time.
The goal is simple – to find great homes for stray dogs.
VIP Pet Care offers $200 worth of veterinary services with the free adoption. Since, the adoption animals have already received much of the care offered with the coupons, VIP has made an allotment for pet owners to utilize the services on another pet owned by the same family, Ruiz said.
Other local shelters are also involved in Clear the Shelters including the Tulare County Animal Services and Tulare Animal Services.
VIP Pet Care holds vaccination clinics at various locations around the South Valley. Other services may be offered. Call the location of the clinic to find out. Visit www.vippetcare.com to find the nearest clinic to you.
