Aiken County Animal Shelter taking in as many pets as they’re adopting out

AIKEN, Sc. (WRDW/WAGT) - Animal shelters are known for overcrowding and the only way to solve this before putting dogs to sleep, is to help them find a permanent home.

Over this week, 23 dogs and 17 cats were adopted at the Aiken County Animal Shelter, but all of their crates keep filling up.

They teamed up with Friends of the Animal Shelter to help homeless animals find their fur-ever home.

Aiken resident, Charles Rudnick says, “We just lost a long time dog my wife owned and were trying to find a buddy.”

Over the last few months the shelter has been struggling with overcrowding.

Hillary Clark-Kulism, Adoption Coordinator at the shelter says, “It’s always a difficult time for us because it seems like there is always more animals that need help than we have homes waiting for them.”

With summer in full blast and in an economic downturn, they are in need of adopters. They decided to partner with Friends of the Animal Shelter for a second year in a row.

“My wife was the one who suggested for today that we come look and because we have been kind of keeping an open mind about adopting a new dog,” said Rudnick.

“Empty the shelter” is put on by the Bissell Pet Foundation.

On top of cutting the adoption prices in half, they pay for pets to be spayed, neutered, vaccinated, micro-chipped, and treated for flees and heart-worms,

“We’ve been having this event going on and today is the culmination of it and so we are hoping to get a lot of adoptions out of it,” said Clark-Kulis.

But, the shelter isn’t seeing the same outcome as before.

We’ve probably taken in as many as we have adopted out during this,” said Clark-Kulis.

Most of the animals are full grown, which makes the adoption process harder.

But, they are grateful the community has stepped in to help out.

“We’ve been very fortunate from community support that we haven’t had to euthanize any animals for space in almost five years,” said Clark-Kulis.

If you missed the event, the shelter says not to worry, their doors will still be open next week with low adoption prices.

You can go to https://www.aikencountysc.gov/DspOfc?qOfcID=CEDAS for more information.