The long road

Source: Animal Sheltering

(Spring 2020) If you’re a rural shelter, or an organization with the capacity and desire to bring services to rural areas, the challenges of low-income, rural communities—from the difficulties individual people and animals face to overarching population and zoonotic disease control—can feel insurmountable. In rural areas, rescuers say these access-to-care issues are caused or compounded by difficulties like few or no veterinary and pet supply resources; if a shelter exists, there’s little or no foot traffic by potential adopters, no animal control budget, dated facilities and limited hours, including some shelters left unstaffed over the weekends; a lack of pet wellness, foster care, enrichment, community cat and marketing programs; and significant anger and sadness among local animal advocates who perceive little progress despite their years of work...Read more»