Animal shelter finding success in ‘no fee’ adoption promotion

FRANKLIN, Ind. (WISH) — For weeks we’ve been following the success of the Johnson County Animal Shelter and its free adoption promotion.

Within days of the promotion beginning, all the animals had been adopted.

Since the shelter had extra space, the director started taking in animals from overcrowded shelters.

Since the beginning of the month, more than 30 dogs and more than 30 cats have been adopted.

Every year on Christmas, Johnson County Animal Shelter Director Michael Delp comes into work to give each dog a treat.

“Christmas is all about families getting together. They don’t have any family so at least on Christmas day they should be remembered,” Delp said.

This year he has seven dogs to feed, but he feels that’s a success.

“There’s been Christmases when I’ve come in to hand out treats and I’ve had 35 or 40 dogs in the shelter,” Delp said.

Since the first of the month, the shelter has been offering free adoptions for dogs and cats.

Delp said it’s been very successful.

“We’ve emptied the shelter, had more come in, emptied the shelter and had more come in,” he said.

Even with dogs that might otherwise be challenging to adopt out.

“We’ve had some animals come in that have substantial medical issues,” he said, “The public has been really kind and generous because they’ve responded to those animals and given them homes when those are difficult animals to place.”

While his goal was an empty shelter on Christmas, he wanted to take in some dogs from an overcrowded shelter where they might have been put down.

“If we can help another shelter with their overcrowding we want to do it,” he said.

Delp is confident that the public will continue to step forward and make sure these dogs and cats find forever homes.

The shelter is running the free adoption promotion through January.

They are closed this weekend for the holiday, but open up Monday morning at 10.