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APS of Durham is partnering with the Charlottesville-Albemarle SPCA and Best Friends Animals Society as part of Best Friends’ Shelter Collaborative Program with a goal of increasing lifesaving for dogs and cats entering APS of Durham. On Thursday, January 20th, a team from the SPCA came to APS of Durham to transport 24 dogs and 26 cats, including puppies and kittens, from APS of Durham to their shelter in Charlottesville, VA to be adopted. This is our first venture into our newly formed partnership to save more lives.
APS of Durham is a nonprofit organization charged with managing the operations of the Durham County Municipal Animal Shelter, which is an open-admission shelter where all stray, surrendered, abandoned, and abused animals are sheltered for the local community. Currently, APS of Durham rehomes, adopts
out, transfers, and reunites 72% of the animals that enter the shelter. Our goal is to increase this to 90% of dogs and cats we take into our program by the end of 2022.
APS of Durham is very excited and honored to partner with a leading animal welfare organization such as the Charlottesville-Albemarle SPCA. We are also very happy to be part of the shelter collaborative program as a Best Friends Network Partner, which facilitated this match. The collaborative goal of saving 90% of the animals that enter our care is one that we embrace and is very important to achieve. At the same time, we recognize the myriad challenges our community encounters currently contributing to our animal saving rate of 72%.
Historically, many of the animals that enter APS of Durham are some of the hardest to place animals within our community. Many of them are too medically and/or behaviorally fragile to be released. Outdated local animal ordinances are being reviewed and updated to align with current animal welfare standards, which will further help to save lives of Durham animals. APS of Durham is on a mission to save as many animals as possible in a socially conscious way. We are committed to placing animals that will thrive and live full and healthy lives. We value the lives of all animals and do our best to alleviate suffering and incurable pain, whether physically or mentally, in a kind, ethical and humane way. We uphold our value to ensure that the animals we rehome are safe for our community, as we are
committed to safeguarding the safety and security of our neighbors and their pets. Every day, we must take into consideration many factors and make the fundamentally best decision that we can for the animals within the context of our community.
Through our partnership with the Shelter Collaborative Program, we are eager to gain access to more resources, experience, and best practices to save more lives. APS of Durham is partnering with Charlottesville-Albemarle SPCA in this work.
“Animal Protection Society of Durham is absolutely committed to saving more lives. We welcome this partnership and appreciate the support of both Charlottesville-Albemarle SPCA and Best Friends Animal Society,” said, Shafonda Allen, Executive Director. “We have directed all of our available resources in recent years to methodically increase our save rate. We believe that working with this one-on-one mentorship program will help us implement new strategies to overcome even more challenges and further increase our rate of animals saved through our shelter.”
Through the Shelter Collaborative Program, funding is provided through Best Friends to cover expenses associated with achieving our partnership goals. APS of Durham will use the funding to implement more strategies that have been shown to decrease unnecessary intake and increase adoptions, community engagement and rescue partnerships. Such strategies have been successful at saving more dogs and cats at the Charlottesville-Albemarle SPCA. Together, we expect these strategies to save more of Durham animals who will go on to live great lives in new homes.
“We have been a leader in Virginia with our Community Cat Program and we look forward to partnering with the Animal Protection Society of Durham to implement a similar program at their shelter,” said Angie Gunter, Chief Executive Officer of the Charlottesville-Albemarle SPCA. “We are excited about this collaboration and look forward to learning from each other.”
