Valentine’s Day is a way to show love to your significant others, friends or anyone special in your life, however, sharing the same amount of love to a furry little friend is equally as meaningful.
El Paso Animal Services provide animals with a safe environment while trying to get the community involved in adopting them so that the animals can find a safe and loving home.
El Paso Animal Services dedicates its employees to “Deliver ‘excEPtional’ services to support a high quality of life for our pets, ensuring their five freedoms.”
According to their website, El Paso Animal Services have five freedoms, which protect the vitality of pets in their care.
“Freedom from hunger and thirst, freedom from discomfort, freedom from pain, injury or disease, freedom to express normal behavior and freedom from fear and distress.”
Julie Newbold, public affairs coordinator at El Paso Animal Services explains how animals enter the shelter every day causing spacing issues at the shelters.
“As far as space goes, it really has to do with the number of animals that we receive on an annual basis,” Newbold said. “We get over 23,000 animals entering our shelter every single year.”
The shelter receives about 50 to 70 animals daily which can make pets being adopted more difficult since there are so many coming in daily across the city.
“Since we are the only open intake shelter for the entire county, that’s where our biggest challenges are,” Newbold said. “There is of course a lot of other rescues that help us out locally and nationally that pull from us.”
When it comes to adopting an animal from the shelter, the adoptee must be over 18 years of age and have a valid photo identification card. From there, a worker will show the adoptee several animals in the shelter ranging in sizes.
The shelter hosts several outreach events across the city and are most popularly known as the mobile adoption centers.
“It’s always been a good way to go out there into the community because [there are] a lot of people that don’t know about us, [or] about other rescues,” Newbold said. “I know me, growing up here in El Paso, I didn’t really know anything about adoption and kind of [how] big a problem it was, the animal crisis, not just in our community but nationwide.”
The cats and dogs who have been spayed, neutered, microchipped and vaccinated, are able to be adopted immediately. According to Newbold, there are currently 800 cats and dogs currently within their immediate care.
The shelter also involves the El Paso community by asking for volunteers to help around the facility. They have programs for children as young as eight years old.
Animals are valued companions and are an important part of many people’s lives. Many cats and dogs are waiting to be in a loving home.
There are several shelter locations across El Paso including 5001 Fred Wilson Ave., 5625 Confetti Dr. and 9068 Socorro Rd. So, on Valentine’s Day, share the love to a new furry friend.
Avery Escamilla-Wendell is the editor-in-chief at The Prospector and may be reached at [email protected] or on Instagram @by_avery_escamilla.
