Helen Woodward Animal Center Staff Members Head to Montgomery County Animal Shelter to Assist with Latest Crisis… 
(Helen Woodward Animal Center staff head to Montgomery County Animal Shelter to save lives.)
Rancho Santa Fe, Calif. (June 28, 2018) – This morning, thanks to Lone Star Animal Welfare League and Southwest Airlines, staff members from Helen Woodward Animal Center are flying to Texas where they will visit Montgomery County Animal Shelter (MCAS), just outside of Houston. As a result of last year’s Hurricane Harvey, the shelter is nearing crisis point with over 1,614 available orphan dogs and cats. Once there, Center staff will work alongside MCAS employees and will begin the first part of a two-step process to bring animals out west to find their forever homes.
Helen Woodward Animal Center is becoming a familiar name in the Lone Star state. During 2017’s devastating Hurricane Harvey, Center staff members flew to Houston to assist orphan pets left stranded due to demolished shelters and foster homes. In the months that followed, the Center welcomed multiple arrivals of Houston pets transferred to the Center for a better chance at finding their forever homes out west. Now, almost a year later, with Houston shelters still in disrepair, less stringent Texas spay and neuter laws, and a slow dispersion of FEMA checks to those affected by the 2017 hurricane, the Houston homeless pet population explosion is nearing crisis point.
Montgomery County Animal Shelter, located in Conroe (45 minutes from Houston proper), was one of the hardest hit by last year’s storm. The animal welfare organization dedicated to helping animals in Montgomery County through “humane, efficient, and high quality care” has seen a sharp rise in abandoned animals in 2018. It seems that individuals still struggling to rebuild their lives are finding that they can no longer afford their pets and either drop them off at shelters or abandon them to the streets where the prevalence of unneutered and unspayed animals is leading to an overwhelming number of homeless litters.
Montgomery County Animal Shelter was one of the groups Helen Woodward Animal Center staff members worked closest with during the challenging September 2017 days. The MCAS team did not forget the kindness.
“I received a call from a contact at Montgomery County Animal Shelter just a couple weeks ago,” stated Helen Woodward Animal Center Operations Director Jennifer Shorey. “They informed me that they had received a donation from the Lone Star Animal Welfare League to assist with the current overabundance of orphan pets they are seeing in their shelter. The donation will help them transfer a portion of their pets to another shelter and they wanted those pets to come to Helen Woodward. The chaos after Harvey was incredibly stressful and the fact that they remembered us and our work out there means a lot to all of us. We’re delighted to help find these pets their new homes.”
Helen Woodward Animal Center President and CEO Mike Arms wanted to do more to help and offered to send two staff members to MCAS to provide some needed assistance with the transfer. Southwest Airlines, which partnered with the Center to transfer Houston orphan pets last year, immediately jumped in with free tickets for Shorey and a Center veterinary technician to fly out roundtrip. Southwest is also donating 1,000 carriers to the Montgomery County shelter.
On Saturday morning, June 30th, the first of the MCAS transfers will begin their travel by van. The transfer will include 22 Montgomery County orphan pets with another transfer scheduled in the upcoming weeks. The orphan pets will arrive at Helen Woodward Animal Center on Sunday, July 1st, where they will receive medical checks from Center staff and will be transported to the homes of Center foster families until they are cleared for adoption.
A donation page has been set up to arrange for more transfers like these to Helen Woodward Animal Center. To donate, please log onto: https://my.animalcenter.org/TexasRescue
If you would like to donate directly to Montgomery County Animal Shelter, please log onto: https://www.mcaspets.org/
For more information on Helen Woodward Animal Center, please go to www.animalcenter.org, call 858-756-4117 or stop by at 6461 El Apajo Road in Rancho Santa Fe.