San Marcos Regional Animal Shelter calls for your support during Clear the Shelter Month

By Omar Gonzalez

News Reporter

SAN MARCOS — August is Clear the Shelter Month across the country, and the San Marcos Regional Animal Shelter wants to make sure San Marcos knows. With Clear the Shelter Month set to end Aug. 31, now would be the time for San Martians to consider seeing how they can play a role in clearing the kennels and welcoming in a new furry companion.

Clear the Shelter Month has been an annual event for shelters across the nation since 2014. It was inspired by a pet adoption event that saw the most pet adoptions in one day in North Texas.

With this pet adoption campaign ending later this week, there are several things that San Martians can do to assist the cause, especially through adopting.

Minnie Buckhaults, the shelter’s community engagement director, said that for the remainder of August, all adoptions are lowered to $10. “And that covers all of their medical care, leaving every animal spayed, neutered, microchipped and up to date on vaccinations,” Buckhaults said.

“People still have to fill out an application, they still have to get go through our adoption process,” Buckhaults said. “So, we try and match you with animals that are going to fit your home environment. We just want to make sure that these animals when they’re leaving our facility have as much success as possible, and they stay in those homes.”

The San Marcos Regional Animal Center is hoping for potential adopters to come in this August and take advantage of Clear the Shelter Month since the shelter has been overcrowded since March 2022, to the point where a garage located in the shelter had to be converted into more space for kennels to fit the overflow.

“At the beginning of the summer, we had almost 200% occupancy in our dog kennels. And as of this week, we have 93 dog kennels, and we have 153 dogs in our care,” Buckhaults said.

With the shelter trying new initiatives, such as allowing community members to “test drive” or foster their adult dogs, adopting does not have to be the only option to help the shelter and the animals involved.

If you wish to learn more about volunteering for the San Marcos Animal Regional Shelter or any other information, please visit http://sanmarcostx.gov/animalservices.