Shelters encourage pet adoption this holiday season
BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) — Santa Claus’ weekends will be busy for the rest of the year, but he wasn’t too busy to make a special stop Saturday at the Bakersfield Animal Care Center.
The shelter welcomed residents to take pictures with Santa and their dogs on Saturday. People could also get shelter dogs in their Christmas card photos and browse adoptable pets as part of the shelter’s effort to get folks to adopt, not shop, this holiday season.
“This time of year, we see a lot of people getting dogs from breeders, but what happens when folks get dogs from breeders is those dogs end up here anyways and our adoptions drop,” Bakersfield Animal Care Center spokesperson Joshua Proctor said. “We definitely are trying to promote our adoptions, so we can move some dogs, so that we don’t ever see them come back into the shelter system again.”
Local shelters remain over capacity heading into the holiday season. The Bakersfield Animal Care Center sent another group of 30 dogs for adoption to Oregon, Washington and British Columbia Canada on Saturday.