Donations needed to help transfer animals out of state

The Valencia County Animal Shelter is asking for help to support its animal transport program, which greatly reduces the euthanasia rate at the shelter.

Every week since May, the shelter has been able to send dogs and cats to New Hope Rescue in Colorado Springs at least once a week, sometimes twice.

“We typically have a couple different rescues take animals on each transfer up there as well,” said shelter transfer coordinator Patty Mugan. “This has greatly decreased the need for euthanizing healthy animals because we have no space for them.”

However, there isn’t enough money in the shelter’s budget this year to pay for necessities such as health certificates, rabies vaccines, heartworm tests and medical exams, as well as the fuel needed for the 800-mile weekly round trip to transfer animals.

“I would like to say thank you to everyone who has supported our shelter over the years and, of course, our dedicated shelter volunteers who leave time in their schedule each week to make this trip for us, to give our Valencia County animals a second chance at the life they deserve,” Mugan said.

She continued, saying the shelter has worked with New Hope for years and with their recent development of their own adoption center, New Hope has focused a huge part of their efforts on taking dogs and cats from Valencia County.

“They have also taken a lot of our special needs cases including ones that need their leg amputated, heartworm positive dogs, senior dogs and other medical needs ones that are considered ‘rescue only,’” she said.

“We have a decent amount of adoptions every month but unfortunately, it is still not enough to keep up with the amount of animals coming in daily.”

The shelter is asking for the community’s help so it can continue to make the transfers. Mugan said any size donation helps, but the transfers cost about $45 to $50 per animal, and about 20 to 35 animals are sent each week.

The local nonprofit All For Animals, a 501c3, has offered to handle the donations for the shelter transfer program, making any donations 100 percent tax deductible.

Donations can be made via PayPal, at [email protected] or paypal.com/fundraiser/charity/3745404, or by check made out to “All For Animals NM,” sent to P.O Box 3170, C/O Lee Matthews, Los Lunas, N.M., 87031

Any businesses wanting to make a donation should send an email to Lee Matthews at [email protected].

All For Animals can also be found on Facebook, fb.me/allforanimalsnm.

Any questions about the shelter’s transfer program can be directed to Mugan at 866-2479, Ext. 4, or at [email protected].