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"On May 2nd, we noticed that Kendrick, a dog who had been at our shelter for six weeks, was extremely ill. After testing him, it was discovered that he had distemper. We had to humanely euthanize Kendrick and shut down intakes of strays and owner surrenders.
In the past, the only way to ensure the health of animals and operations was to depopulate the shelter, meaning to euthanize as many dogs as possible to clear the shelter of disease. Instead, our Deputy Director, Katrina Rodrigues, took on the task of testing every dog in the shelter, along with the help of other employees and volunteers. The results were not great, and we had to quarantine about 12 dogs in our Eloy location. While we unfortunately lost some dogs to the disease, we had an amazing community that helped take in animals to foster while they recovered, as well as people finding strays and fostering them for us to mitigate the spread further. It was a huge team effort.
We have learned a lot from this experience and cannot stress enough how important vaccines are for your pets. Pinal County Animal Care and Control offers free parvo/distemper shots at every clinic, paid for by Petco Love, and low-cost, $10.00 rabies shots. We are trying to add clinics throughout the summer so people can get their animals vaccinated. Parvo and distemper are horrible diseases for animals to get, and very expensive to treat.
We are slowly returning to normal operations, but we remain extra cautious and ensure that all animals entering our facility are vaccinated and boosted within two weeks. Thank you to all of the Community members and volunteers who helped us get through this difficult time." - Audra Michael, Pinal County Animal Care & Control Director
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