November is Adopt-a-Senior Pet Month, and with the start of the holiday season, one local senior dog rescue is working to get more senior dogs a new home for the holidays.
“All of the shelters are pretty overcrowded right now, so we’re in a place where we could really help them,” Muttville founder and CEO Sherri Franklin told CBS News Bay Area.
Franklin began her senior dog rescue out of her home back in 2007. Today, she has a full team working with her and a brand-new San Francisco facility.
“There’s a lot of people that give up their dogs during the holidays,” Franklin said.
She and her staff partner with the San Francisco Animal Care and Control to pick up several senior dogs that had just been abandoned. Franklin picked up a 15-year-old dog and a 10-year-old dog that had recently been surrendered.
“She has some pain going on for sure, she probably could have a broken jaw, which we have a specialist that can take care of that,” she said as she held 15-year-old Butter Biscuit.
“We always have a lot of dogs, and right now, we are once again full,” said Virginia Donohue, the executive director of San Francisco Animal Care and Control.
She added that overcrowded shelters are a growing crisis, especially when surrenders are high during the holiday season.
“Muttvile took 119 dogs last year. That’s a critical number, to remove from the facility, find homes, get them placed,” she said.
All dogs that come through Muttville go through a general intake process, where they receive a new harness and spend some time in the Zen room. Afterwards, a veterinary on site examines the dogs. They also get a fresh grooming. Staff makes sure the dogs are up for adoption on their website by the end of day.
“Dogs come into the shelter like this, and they still are wagging their tail and still have a quality of life. And they’re brought in there for euthanasia sometimes by their guardian, and I see enough of them not make it out of the shelter alive that I decided that really, really needs to change,” Franklin said.
In the past 17 years, she has rescued nearly 13,000 dogs, with many more rescues to come so that the precious senior dogs can find a forever home for the holidays.
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