The Women's Humane Society is an open admissions shelter and accepts all domestic small animals from within a 50 mile radius of our facility.  The health, safety, and well-being of the surrendered animal, people and animals in the shelter, and those in an adopter's home and community are our top priority.  You can help us place your pet by filling out the surrender form as honestly as possible.  We rely on this information to match your pet with a new family.  We take pro-active steps to place animals, advertising them on this website and all possible sites that sync to this Rescuegroups.org site and in local newspapers.  We also work with a variety of rescue groups to place healthy and friendly animals overwhelmed by the shelter environment and some hard-to-place animals.  While we will do our best to find your pet a new home, unfortunately we cannot make any guarantees.  We only place animals in the adoption program if they have a strong chance for a fulfilling life beyond our walls.  This means under certain conditions, we will euthanize animals surrendered to us.  You may learn about these conditions by reading this entire page.    We will not judge your reasons for surrender and ask you to understand the same reasons you could not continue to provide for the animal may also make it unadoptable. If you live beyond our 50 mile radius, we are certain that there are facilities in your area with similar policies and practices.  We encourage you to use these facilities, especially with cats as the surrender of cats and kittens during the busy extended summer months of kitten season will likely result in the euthanasia of others to maintain our commitment to turn no unwanted animal away.  There are far more healthy and treatable cats and kittens that need homes than there are resources and adopters to provide for them. 

Exhaust all other options before surrender.  There are times when having a pet just isn't working or a personal crisis precludes your ability to provide for a pet, and there is no option but to find it a new home.  We encourage you to exhaust all other options before turning to surrender (Some rescues will allow you to post your pet on their website while you retain custody and they assist you with an adoption).  While you may return with your receipt to reclaim your surrendered and yet unadopted pet from the Women's Humane Society, we will not enter into an agreement to call you regarding the disposition of your surrendered pet  (Including the event that euthanasia is deemed appropriate to prevent suffering, abuse, or neglect of your pet or others). 

There is no time frame placed upon an animal's stay here.  The animal's emotional strength, positive socialization, and good care prior to surrender are strong contributors to its emotional well-being and immune system strength during a stay in a busy shelter environment with new germs entering daily in previously unvaccinated animals.  Some animals break down emotionally or medically after a few days or weeks.  Others grow in their confidence and comfort in their personal space that includes a constant supply of water, a consistent feeding schedule,  daily cleaning, indoor/outdoor runs for the dogs and an overhead heating system in all dog kennels supplemented by a heating system in the floor of the puppy and small dog kennel.  Cats and small animals are kept indoors only.  With the exception of litters surrendered together, all animals have their own cage.  Length of time at our facility and adoptable qualities are considered when making the unfortunate decision on which animal is to be euthanized when space becomes an issue.

Teach your children responsibility, not that animals are disposable.  If your child is not caring for their pet, please do not surrender the animal to teach a lesson or follow through on a threat.  You are perpetuating the mind set that animals are disposable, and this is a major contributor to the homeless animal crisis and euthanasia of healthy animals because the number of responsible owners falls short of the number of animals that need homes.  Take the pet out of the child's room or care to communicate that the pet will be in the custody and care of a responsible family member.  Garnish allowance or a certain portion of income from a part-time job if you deem this appropriate to communicate that your family made a life time commitment to this pet and if the child does not do the work required to fulfill this commitment, there are costs or natural consequences associated with other family members doing the work.

Healthy and adoptable animals are vaccinated.  Unadoptable animals can not be vaccinated.  All healthy pets will be vaccinated at the time of intake or as soon as they can be safely handled so it is not necessary to incur this expense for a stray animal prior to surrender.  Vaccinations are not appropriate for an animal whose system is already compromised by injury or illness.  We will not risk injury to a pet or person if the animal is behaving in a manner that suggests the vet exam, vaccinations, nasal bordatella, and wormer will provoke an aggressive response.  If your pet or a stray pet have any medical conditions that make it unadoptable and you can safely treat these conditions prior to surrender, you are having a role in possibly preventing the euthanasia of that animal and keeping others healthy at the shelter.  This being said, animals entering a shelter with an immune system that was just taxed by a treatable condition are often more susceptible to the next strain of viral or bacterial infection that is sneezed upon them by their neighbor or deposited on them by a visitor that ignores the signs and barricades to prevent people from touching the animals.

If you wish to surrender an unadoptable animal and do not have the resources to pay the euthanasia fee, we respectfully request that you surrender to your county SPCA.  The Women's Humane Society has no animal control contracts and therefore receives no county tax dollars to provide services to community members that can not afford services for their pet or a stray animal.  Our rates reflect our commitment to our animal welfare mission to make pet ownership affordable, but we do not have the resources to provide free services. Donations and animal welfare-centered fees fail to cover the sheltering costs.  This is why county dollars are available to county SPCAs to provide free services to community members who can not afford them. 

Be honest with yourself and on our surrender forms.  You place your pet at risk of abuse or neglect (from an uninformed new owner) and others at risk of harm if you choose to be dishonest about risk factors.

Follow the links below for additional information:

Surrender Hours and Costs

Definition of 'Adoptable' at the Women's Humane Society

Information Specific to Kittens and Cats

Information Specific to Puppies and Dogs