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Shelter. The Sacramento Refuge waives reclamation fees for the remainder of the year.” title=”A guard dog lays eggs at the Front Street Animal Shelter. The Sacramento Refuge waives reclamation fees for the remainder of the year.” loading=”lazy”/>
A guard dog lays eggs at the Front Street Animal Shelter. The Sacramento Refuge waives reclamation fees for the remainder of the year.
Front Street Animal Shelter makes it easier to recover animals lost during July 4th by waiving animal recovery fees.
Fees will be waived for a full year, with immediate effect. Previously, to recover a lost animal, owners had to pay a daily boarding fee for each day the animal spent at the downtown Sacramento shelter and a return fee to the owner. If the pet was not allowed, owners would also be asked to pay an unauthorized pet fee. In 2020, only 44% of the animals on Front Street were claimed.
The fees are intended to offset the costs of taking care of that many pets.
Ryan Hinderman, Front Street Animal Shelter’s director of communications and customer service told The Sacramento Bee that the shelter welcomes around 10,000 pets a year. Adoption costs, recovery costs and public funding are the main sources of income for the shelter.
Friends of Front Street, a non-profit group that supports the shelter, will help finance animal care in the absence of income. Hinderman noted that the fee will be waived for a year to verify the effectiveness of the policy before making a decision on the potential elimination of the fee clawback for good.
“One of our concerns is that (the fees) may prevent some people from getting their pets back when they are in financial difficulty,” Hinderman told The Bee. “Our hope is that by removing more animals from the shelter, more animals will return to their families where they belong, this will reduce overcrowding in the shelter.”
As July 4 approaches, the refuge anticipates a high number of lost animals.
Hinderman noted that families can check shelter websites – Front Street managed by the city of Sacramento, the installation of the SPCA on Florin Perkins Road and Bradshaw Site in Sacramento County – for updates on the animals in their care. He also added that families can post lost and found pages on Facebook, Nextdoor, Craigslist and other social media in the case of a lost pet to let others know about the animal. He underlined the importance of the microchip for the identification of animals.
