LAFAYETTE — On Wednesday, the Lafayette Animal Shelter and Care Center, located on West Pont Des Mouton Road, announced their new no-kill policy.
In 2016, former Mayor-President Joel Robideaux put in place an initiative to set a goal for the shelter to reach a no-kill status by 2020. The shelter says they wouldn't have been able to reach that goal if it wasn't for the help from the community and various non-profit organizations who stepped up to help.
"It's like a stool that has four legs, and we need all of these legs to make it happen," says Shelley Delahoussaye, the supervisor at Lafayette Animal Shelter. "If we didn't have the volunteers, if we didn't have the support of the community, if we didn't have our fosters, there is absolutely no way we could have done this."
Since that goal was set in 2016, the shelter has begun to implement new tactics aimed at helping families who are looking to adopt a pet be able to do so easily by lowering adoption fees, spaying and neutering the animals they take in and also advocating in-home fostering programs.
"For some people, that can be a barrier for bringing an animal into their home," says Jeanine Foucher, the Executive Director of Acadiana Animal Aid, one of the many non-profit organizations supporting the shelter. "I think they really looked at meeting the community where they are, so they can continue to move animals out of the shelter and into loving families."
Last year, the shelter had nearly fourteen hundred adoptions, which increased their live outcome rate to ninety percent. Foucher believes that the pandemic played a major role in those numbers increasing due to people being home.
"The stay at home order really helped us out," says Delahoussaye. "People had more time to be able to bottle feed kittens, potty train their new pets, train their new pets, and take a dog home for a week to test it out and see how it goes."
"I see a change happening in Lafayette," says Foucher. "People are really embracing adoption as a way to add to their family, and that is going to help Lafayette Animal Shelter, as well as other shelters throughout the state to continue saving lives."
The good news comes with perfect timing as the shelter is planning to relocate to a bigger and better location in April. The new facility will house all accommodations under one roof and will be over 20,000 square feet and climate controlled. Dog kennels at the new facility will be two-sided which will give dogs access to both indoors and outdoors when they want.
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