Kingston Humane Society closes to public to ‘catch up’ on pending adoptions

The Kingston Humane Society (KHS) has announced it will be closed to the public from Monday, May 29, to Friday, Jun. 2, 2023, due to significant capacity issues.

According to a release from the organization, during the closure they will not be accepting any surrenders and public visitation hours will be cancelled.

“Our visitation traffic has returned to pre-pandemic levels,” said Executive Director Gord Hunter. “That takes time away from processing adoptions. In combination with an increase in strays and a lack of dog fosters, that means we have a backlog of great dogs that we can’t get into foster care or into forever homes.”

Since the shelter re-opened to the public, the Customer Care team has been swamped by public interaction and has not had enough time to review pending adoption applications, according to the organization.

Scheduled appointments will be honoured and pound services operations will continue with contracted municipalities, KHS noted.

For over a year, the KHS has been operating well over its capacity limits — sometimes with more than twice the 144 animals the aging facility can hold. According to the organization, an excess number of stray dogs have been brought to the shelter, leaving almost no room for any additional strays which might need care.

“Intakes of stray dogs have jumped dramatically in the last week to 10 days,” said Hunter. “We either have to find a way to reduce our intakes or increase animals going into foster care or forever homes.”

Hunter noted that while foster volunteers have been critical to dealing with the increased number of animals, the KHS is specifically in need of dog foster volunteers. In October 2021, the KHS put out a plea for volunteers, and the community rallied to provide care to the shelter animals. With many animal welfare organizations experiencing similar issues with strained resources, the KHS noted that this is due, in part, to an increase in the number of surrendered or abandoned animals.

“Our list of people waiting to surrender animals seems to grow every day,” Hunter said. “And animal control has brought in nine stray dogs since the weekend. We have to stem the tide of intakes for a few days in order to catch up and get some of these deserving animals out and into loving homes.”

Regular operations will resume on or before Saturday, Jun. 3, 2023. Applications to adopt or foster, as well as donations to help with care, can be made via the website at kingstonhumanesociety.ca