San Marcos is home to many pet owners and animal lovers, but it is also home to several stray animals. The San Marcos Regional Animal Shelter offers simple steps in the adoption process, making it easy for animals to find a forever home.
The San Marcos Regional Animal Shelter is over capacity due to dumping, overproduction of animals and surrendered animals. Many look to breeders and puppy mills to buy a new pet instead of adoption.
“We do see a lot of like adopted pets from [the] San Marcos Animal Shelter, but then again, we also see an equal amount of if not more people buying from the buying from puppy mills and stuff like that,” Kenna Van Keuren, an employee at Tickle-Blagg Animal Hospital said.
To adopt from the San Marcos Regional Animal Shelter, owners must be over 18 years old with a valid ID. All animals available for adoption have been spayed or neutered, microchipped and vaccinated.
A green border on the kennel card means the animal is available for adoption. While selecting a pet, the shelter asks that no fingers are stuck into cages. To interact with animals, a staff member at the shelter can show future owners and pets to a yard to meet.
If a future owner already owns a pet at home, the shelter strongly suggests that the animals meet to test compatibility.
The pet adoption fee at The San Marcos Regional Animal Shelter is $97.
Before bringing a pet home, it is essential to have all required necessities needed to care for the animal properly. Checking with apartment management, roommates or housemates and landlords is vital before bringing a new home as there is sometimes a fee or breed and weight restrictions.
“You can kind of look at it like having a baby.” Van Keuren said. “I think more like parent education of like how you need to take care of these pets, first of all, is going to be really vital, because you don’t want to push people to adopt if they can’t do that. It’s hard because there’s a lot of first-time pet owners and they don’t have a lot of resources.”
Van Keuren believes that it is crucial that future and current pet owners are properly educated on taking care of their pets, including having all the resources needed to care for their companions to lower the capacity at animal shelters.
The San Marcos Regional Animal Shelter is open from 12 p.m. to 7 p.m. Monday-Tuesday and Thursday-Friday and from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturdays.
For more information on The San Marcos Regional Shelter visit its website.
