Petey has been in the Clinton Animal Shelter for 644 days, with no time off for good behavior. It’s a long sentence for the white dog, but Petey is one of the lucky ones.
The Clinton Animal Shelter has been full for months, and not able to accept any more homeless dogs. The reason: the prevalence of pet discarding and puppy dumping. With no room at the shelter, Terri Williams and concerned volunteers spend hours every day on the phone, trying to find rescue options for homeless pets, but in turn get calls from all over the state from shelters that are similarly strapped.
Terri is a board member of CARE, Clinton Animal Rescue Endeavor, which runs the Clinton Animal Shelter. On March 8, Max Motors is teaming up with CARE to take the pressure off the shelter by finding Petey and his pals new homes.
The big draw: for Shelter Adoption Day, adoption fees have been cut in half for dogs, to $75, and reduced $15 for a cat or kitten to $50. The regular fees — $150 for dogs, $65 for cats — are actually cheap, Terri said, and do not start to cover the medical costs the shelter pays for rabies shots and other inoculations, spay/neuter procedures, and micro-chipping that are spent on each pet.
In all, 38 dogs are currently housed in the shelter, plus seven are in outside kennels, not an ideal situation in cold weather.
“We are now over capacity,” Terri said. “We actually should only be holding 25 in the shelter.”
Another 40 dogs are in foster care homes, adopted on a temporary basis. The board members are hoping the March 8 event at Max Motors will result in a lot of adoptions, she said, creating space to accept more dogs. If the volunteers can’t find options for unwanted pets or unexpected litters, they have to ask people to hold onto them. There is, literally, no room in the inn, she said.
CARE is part of a network of animal welfare groups that work to save the lives of cats and dogs, and has a no-kill policy. That means that once the shelter is full, there are no options for unwanted pets in the community.
So on March 8, Max Motors, 1500 Harrison Rd., will have pets on display both outside and inside the dealership from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Ida Jacaway at Max Motors is organizing the event for the dealership, which is a big supporter of the shelter and its mission. The staff have filled a truck bed with bags of pet food and treats, and added balloons to decorate the dealership for the event. They have also scheduled a food truck from Chick-fil-A for 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Max Motors has donated part of their air time on Fox4KC.com to advertise the event, and a news crew was visiting the dealership last Friday to meet Petey, Milly and other dogs up for adoption and the volunteers. The CARE board, shelter staff and volunteers are counting on the March 8 event to result in a lot of adoptions.
CARE (Clinton Animal Rescue Endeavor) has held adoption events before, Terri said, but not on this scale. The shelter is also strapped for cash, she said.
“We need all the help we can get,” Terri said. “When it comes to having too many dogs, we are in a bad spot trying to save so many.”
Puppy-dumping is becoming a common occurrence, she said, the result of pet owners who fail to have their pets spayed or neutered, then are “surprised” by litters of puppies they can’t keep. What Terri and other volunteers hear from people who are discarding their pets:
“We’re getting ‘We’re moving,’ or ‘We’re pregnant,’” Terri said. “People are not taking their pets into consideration when making big decisions. It’s hard on the pets when they are returned to the shelter.”
The shelter gets all sizes and kinds of dogs— small, medium-small and medium-large — with the small breeds being adopted fast, Terri said. The shelter even gets “doodles” — poodle crossbreeds —as a result of breeder dumps.
The cat numbers are good right now, Terri said, but spring is coming, which is ‘cat season.’ The shelter will work with people to get feral cats in their neighborhoods rounded up and spayed, Terri said.
The mission of CARE, part of the Best Friends network, is to promote adoption, prevent abuse, and educate the public on how to care for companion animals.
The weather forecast for Saturday is partly cloudy and warm, with temperatures in the 50s. Come out to Max Motors, on the east side of Hwy. 7 on Saturday, meet Petey, and help the shelter get its head above water by adopting or by making a donation. To get to Harrison Road from town, go out Price Lane and under the highway overpass, and turn right on Dzf Road.
If you live on the east side of Clinton, you can take Van Sant Road north and turn left on Harrison Road. Max Motors was founded by Mark Muller in Butler, Mo., in 2006. It acquired Jim Raysik’s dealership in 2023. Max Motors is owned by Mark Muller and Bob Jacaway, who joined the company in 2017. Max Motors awards a Future Agricultural Leaders Scholarship annually.
