12 Strays of Christmas success!

As some of our followers already know, this past weekend we hosted the 12 Strays of Christmas Adoption Event at our facility on Saturday. There are many remarkable things about this event that we LOVE. Here are the top 5 things we would like you to know about our event.

5. In 2012, a partnership was started in Pitt County to unify some of the animal welfare organizations in our community. This was done so that we would begin to work together to make a difference in the lives of animals here in Pitt County. Before this time, we all worked seperately and sometimes sadly, against one another. The beginning of the Pitt County Partnership for Animal Welfare has been a blessing to all of those involved and we couldn't be more proud of the work we have accomplished. From 2012 until mid 2014, the partnership consisted of the Pitt County Animal Shelter, the Humane Society of Eastern Carolina and Spay Today. Each partner works with the other to assist them in our overall mission, to reduce pet overpopulation and the number of animals in shelters in our community. Together, we were able to reduce euthanasia rates through pet adoption programs AND reduce the number of animal intakes at the shelter through community spay and neuter programs. This year, the Pet Food Pantry of Eastern NC has join us by helping to keep animals in homes by providing pet food and supplies to families that have fallen on hard times.

The 12 Strays of Christmas began as an event solely for Pitt County Animal Shelter in 2012. In 2013, we made it a partnership event and it has grown in numbers during it's 3 year existance. In 2012, it was only 12 dogs. In 2013, we added 12 cats (6 dogs and 6 cats from each shelter).

4. It's a fun time of year where EVERYONE gets involved! We had all four agencies from the Partnership busily working AND volunteers and people in our community dropping off donations ALL DAY LONG! Student groups and faculty groups from ECU visited us, as well as Danielle from Danielle's Pet Care who dropped off TONS of fun donations for our animals and for our facility. The Daily Reflector came out and photographed our animals and gave us a huge front page spread in the paper on Friday to get the community pumped about ADOPTING! The holiday spirit was all around.

3. We'll admit it, the staff love to dress our animals up! If we can show them off, we will take every opportunity we can. We had dogs in elf costumes, jingly collars, Christmas sweaters and even the cats amused us and played along with a jingle or two on red and green collars. The animals all received red and green holiday blankets and holiday toys to match. Our staff got to decorate the kennels and Cat Palace and we were in HOLIDAY HEAVEN!

2. We got an incredibly wonderful Christmas surprise from Spay Today this year and they gifted us all of the spays and neuters for all of the animals in the event. This is a HUGE cost savings for us and the Pitt County Animal Shelter. We can never say thank you enough for this.

1. We found homes for 18 animals on the day of the event! That is 18 animals that will be HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS!

We cannot tell you how magical it was for us to open our doors that day to lines of people interested in adopting our animals. We have never seen that many people there to adopt. This warms our hearts and makes us wish that every day was a 12 Strays day. Please don't forget, we are open for adoptions EVERY Friday-Sunday from 1-5pm.