PORT ALLEN — The West Baton Rouge Animal Shelter is still hoping to find foster homes for adult cats and dogs ahead of the New Year.
The shelter still has about four adult cats and seven or eight adult dogs who they hope to find foster homes for ahead of the new year. Suzanne Jerezano, a supervisor at the shelter, said they have a mix of breeds to choose from.
Jerezano said they have a Plott Hound named Tarzan who is goofy and lanky like a baby giraffe.
Another dog, Meelo, was adopted from the shelter as a puppy, but was returned as an older dog. Jerezano says when you go into his kennel in the morning he has a smile that will melt your heart.
“We have some really good and sweet dogs who just need homes and love right now,” she said.
Late last week, the shelter found a laundry basket abandoned on the side of the road with five puppies inside. Those puppies are all in foster homes already, and two of them are in foster-to-adopt homes. She is currently going through adoption applications for the remaining puppies.
If you’re interested in fostering or adopting a dog or cat, you can call the shelter at (225) 336-2428. You can also find more information on their Facebook page.
The shelter is running half-price adoptions through Friday, Jan. 2. The West Baton Rouge Animal Shelter is open regular hours Monday and Tuesday (7:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m.), and will close at 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 31.
Original story
PORT ALLEN — There’s still time to give a four-legged friend a home for the holidays. Right now, many animal shelters, including West Baton Rouge Animal Shelter are making a push to get cats and dogs into foster homes for Christmas and the new year.
“We’re always looking for fosters, but we do a little special push right before the holidays,” George Bragg, Superintendent of West Baton Rouge Mosquito and Animal Control Departments said. “It’s good for the animals to be in a home for the holidays. And, it helps us a lot. We usually have limited staff and short weeks with the holidays, so the more animals we have out of the shelter, the better.”
Bragg says the shelter is open to both long-term and short-term fosters. And in some instances, fostering can even turn into an adoption. “A lot of times the family falls in love with the animal, and sometimes it turns into an adoption,” Bragg said.
Right now, the shelter is in pretty good shape when it comes to its capacity. “We’ve had quite a few adoptions, and we’ve also had quite a few people stepping up to foster, so we are at less than half capacity,” Bragg said.
“The only thing that we really still need fosters for on our adoption row is adult dogs. All of our puppies found foster homes for the holidays,” he said. “We have between seven to nine adult dogs and maybe two to three cats.”
If you’re considering fostering, Bragg said one of the biggest pieces of advice is to understand the time commitment. “An animal takes a lot of time. Know your situation, especially if you have kids,” he said. “Our staff is going to ask you a lot of questions about your home environment to make sure you get paired with the right animal for your situation.”
“We also will give you some supplies to make the job a lot easier. We have a foster handbook and contract that goes out with fosters. It details all of our policies and procedures and the way that they can contact us if they need to,” Bragg said.
If you’re thinking about adopting, fostering can be a good way to test out the situation and evaluate whether or not you and your family are ready. “You take the animal if it does not fit in with your environment, you can easily bring it back to us,” Bragg said.k
The shelter is also running a half-price adoption special through the end of the month.
If you’re interested in fostering or adopting, you can reach out to the West Baton Rouge Animal Shelter at (225) 336-2428. You can also find more information on their Facebook page.
The shelter closes at 3:30 p.m. Dec. 23 and 10:30 a.m. Christmas Eve. Next week’s hours are also abbreviated because of the New Year’s holiday. You can find all of that information here.
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