Mall Dogs

Humane Pet Nonprofits Follow the Crowds

Animal welfare organizations serving cities around the country are discovering that shopping malls are ideal places to find forever homes for needy pets.

At the Coronado Mall, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Darlene Arden teaches volunteers to clicker-train cats and dogs to make them more adoptable. The SPCA in Cattaraugus County, New York, sets up a highly successful location for adoptions and raising donations in the Olean Center Mall every holiday season. The Dumb Friends League, in Denver, Colorado, maintains an off-site location at The Shops of Northfield-Stapleton, and the Collier County Humane Society, in Naples, Florida, turned a defunct pet shop in the Coastland Center mall into a thriving adoption center staffed by volunteers.

Some shelters motivate the public to embrace and encourage the technique of trap/neuter/release (TNR) as a way to control feral cat populations. Aimee Gilbreath, executive director of the Found Animals Foundation, states, “We launched the groundbreaking Michelson Prize and grant program aimed at developing a non-surgical, single-dose sterilizing agent for cats and dogs. This type of product will help shift pet population control from lethal to non-lethal methods by dramatically reducing the number of pets coming into shelters.”

Learn more at FoundAnimals.org/pet-spay-neuter.
<