02 Sep Second Chance: Why We Have Fewer Animals!
Since 1994, the Animal Resource Center and the Shops of Second Chance Humane Society (SCHS) have been dedicated to serving animals in Southwestern Colorado. Adoption hours are every day from 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. The facility is located at 177 County Rd 10, Ridgway, CO. View shelter pets and services online at secondchancehumane.org.
View shelter pets and services online: www.adoptmountainpets.org
Donate here or mail to: PO Box 2096, Ridgway, CO, 81432.
Go here for more about Second Chance.
You may have noticed over the last few months that the population of available animals at Second Chance has decreased. Instead of 10 to 15 adoptable dogs and 20 to t25 adoptable cats, we now have five to 10 adoptable dogs and 10 to 15 adoptable cats. In some way, the Gold Mountain Fire helped with this population change; many of our animals were adopted by their fosters or remained in their care for extended periods. On the other hand, shelter management made this conscious decision to balance the number of adoptable animals with the human population in our area.
Sheltering animals is not a solution to animal welfare problems. Overall, pets degrade more quickly – physically and emotionally– in a shelter environment than in a home. Stress, frequent changes, and unfamiliar people, animals, and situations can all take a toll. The longer an animal stays, the more likely we are to see changes in their behavior. Unfortunately, behaviors that develop from shelter stress can make an animal less appealing to adopters, causing them to stay even longer. It can become a difficult cycle.
Second Chance firmly believes that the goal is not simply to shelter animals, but to keep them from needing to be sheltered in the first place. To that end, we want our animal population to match the number of adopters we have access to. We don’t want to warehouse animals that may spend weeks or months in a shelter simply because there aren’t enough homes available.
Ridgway has only around 1,200 people, and Ouray County has about 5,000. That means we simply don’t have enough local households to operate a huge shelter filled with 100s of adoptable animals. Many of those animals could spend months waiting for a home, even those without behavioral or medical challenges, because there aren’t enough families to adopt them.
One way to think about it: imagine you’re hungry for a cupcake and walk into a room overflowing with thousands of cupcakes. Countless types, flavors, frostings, and decorations. With so many choices, deciding which one to pick might become so overwhelming that you simply leave without choosing anything. Now imagine being offered a plate with six cupcakes. Suddenly, choosing feels much easier.
Adoptions work in much the same way. There is a balance between not having enough choices and having too many. With a human population of 1,200 in Ridgway, we don’t need 100 adoptable dogs at Second Chance, but four might not be enough, either. We’re working to find that sweet spot: enough animals to give adopters meaningful choices, but not so many that animals spend unnecessary time in the shelter.
This approach isn’t about having fewer animals for the sake of having fewer animals. It’s about improving outcomes for the animals who come through our doors. By keeping shelter populations manageable, reducing length of stay, and supporting foster and adoption opportunities, we can help more animals experience what they truly need: a safe, stable home.
The goal isn’t to have a full shelter; it’s to have fewer animals who need one.
Beau, courtesy Second Chance.
Beau is a 5-year-old dog looking for a new home. He’s a mellow couch-potato who is happy to chill out all day. He’d do best in a home without children, but he’s lived successfully with other dogs and cats.
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