The employees of the Lake City Humane Society would like to educate our constituents on our Owner Surrender process.
Every day we do our best to remain a no-kill shelter. To do this we must keep our Euthanasia rate at 10% or below. This is the reason for doing our surrenders in the way we do.
To surrender your animal, you must now make an appointment on our website www.lakecityhumane.org and complete the owner surrender application. The timeframe that we ask you to wait is a minimum of 14 days, so schedule your appointment accordingly.
When it is time to bring your pets into the facility. It is one animal per appointment, so if you have multiple animals, you must make multiple appointments. This gives us time to go over anything that we may need to know about the animal you are bringing into our facility.
We cover 801 square miles of Columbia County and are obligated by our contracts with the City of Lake City and Columbia County to pick up aggressive, nuisance, stray, abandon, animals. This keeps our shelter at full capacity daily. We are a medium-sized shelter with 62 dog kennels, 28 cat kennels, a cattery, and a sick room to cover 801 square miles of the county. This may seem like a lot of space, but when we are taking in 10-15 dogs and cats per day, that realistically leaves us full and without space.
You have a 14-day period between the time you make the appointment until you bring your animal to our facility. This gives us time to move some animals out to rescue or adoption so we can make kennel space for your animal.
If we do not do it in this way, we then must walk back through our kennels and choose dogs or cats to euthanize so we can put your animal in their kennel. If we do not have an aggressive or very sick animal to humanly euthanize it makes this walk very difficult. Most of the animals are here in our facility at no fault of their own, so it's not fair to them.
We also work to keep your pet with you, whenever possible. If you are surrendering because you cannot afford veterinary care, we will provide you with the information for our low-cost Veterinary Services offered at our onsite clinic. If you need food or litter, our food and litter bank is available to those in need.
If you are thinking that you do not have enough time for your pet, give us a call, we will advise you that it is not neglectful to put your fur babies in a kennel for 8 sometimes 10 hours a day while you work. Our employees have several fur babies who are at home in a kennel for sometimes 10 hours a day while they are working. If you are moving, give us a call, we have a list of Pet-Friendly landlords in the area that we have personally spoken with that will accept pets. If you have no shelter for your animal, give us a call, we will find a way to get you a doghouse or some sort of shelter for your pet.
We want to help! We are here to help! Please join us to keep our shelter at No-Kill Status, by using our Owner Surrender Program.
Our Rescue Coordinator Stacey Blanyer is here to assist you with the process. Please contact her at sblanyar@lakecityhumane.org or (386) 752-3191 ext. 3004.