The capacity crisis at the Washoe County Regional Animal Services is slightly getting better as they are now at 70% capacity at the animal shelter.
Over the past few months, the Washoe County Animal Shelter and local pet adoption agencies have been struggling to make space for dogs coming in.
They can't turn dogs away, so if they run of room, they'll unfortunately have to put some dogs down.
On June 28, the shelter said they were at 90% capacity with about eight kennels open.
The Fourth of July is one of their busiest days of the year.
Last year they saw a 30% increase on Independence Day, and as of now, they couldn't take a load like that in.
"We are seeing lots of pets come in all at once and so we're seeing larger group of pets come in," said Quinn Sweet, Outreach Coordinator for Washoe County Regional Animal Services. "We are seeing that our adoption partners are slowing their transfers from us because they're not seeing the adoption numbers."
The shelter and adoption partners such as the Humane Society and SPCA of Northern Nevada are working close together to solve this issue.
As soon as a pet is adopted, they come straight to the shelter to free up space.
To deal with overcrowding, the shelter has had to double up with some dogs in kennels.
They are urging people that if they find a lost dog to hold it for a day or two and try to bring it back to its owner before bringing it to the shelter.
They also strongly encourage people to adopt from the SPCA or the Humane Society.
For the first time in 15 years, they may have to put dogs down if they can't free up the cages.
"We're just stuck between a rock and a hard place," Sweet said. "We can't turn them away when they come in and we can't force them. So, we're really just doing our best."
For deciding on the euthanasia process, they first look at dogs with behavioral and medical issues, then they go by which dogs have been there the longest.
While the shelter does not want it to get to that point, some people are trying to help make sure that doesn't happen either.
"We understand that the kennels are very full right now, so we thought maybe we try to come down here and get one," said Kris Hellwig, Dog Adopter. "Because I think all the dogs need a nice loving home and if I could, I would take them all home."
The shelter is asking for people to prepare for the Fourth of July as fireworks often make the dogs scared and they run away.
To combat this, the shelter is offering free personalized tags and microchips.
In the event your dog does run away, they can bring it back home safely and save room in the kennels.Â
Now this isn't an issue just in Washoe County as Lyon County says they are dealing with issues with capacity as well.
