Last spring, our team at the Roanoke Valley SPCA received a call that reminded me why we do what we do.
A community member, we’ll call him Steve, was handicapped and living paycheck-to-paycheck. Despite that, he selflessly took in his brother’s dog, Marley, while his brother sought emergency medical care. In the chaotic weeks that followed, he didn’t realize that Marley’s fur was matting until she was in clear discomfort. Steve frantically called 211 Virginia for help. He was passed to multiple organizations — each unable to assist — before finally reaching us.
Normally, we would offer financial aid for a vet visit. Steve, however, could not physically pick Marley up to take her anywhere. We had to get creative. We contacted Roanoke City Animal Control, and a dispatched officer was able to confirm that Marley was not in need of emergency care. He recommended a nearby vet that offered house calls. For Steve, it was just a matter of connecting the dots. For Marley, it meant getting the care she needed while remaining with her loving family.
Since then, Steve’s feedback stuck with me.
“I panicked and felt so alone. I was ready to be met with judgment, but you didn’t hesitate to help. You made me feel like a person.”
Too often, pets are surrendered to shelters due to challenges like unexpected emergency vet costs or major life disruptions like a hospital stay. In fact, the No. 1 barrier to adoption of shelter pets nationwide is retention. Many of these surrenders, however, could be avoided with early intervention. Steve and Marley’s story is a perfect example.
As shelters across the country are getting overrun, our local focus at the Roanoke Valley SPCA is spay and neuter efforts as well as expanded retention programing. Positive outcomes mean caring for animals and their humans, giving pet owners the resources and support they need to successfully care for their animal companions. We believe that financial circumstances alone are not reliable indicators of the capacity to love and care for a pet. People will make good decisions for animals when they are treated with kindness and understanding, and when they have enough information and resources.
That distinction drives our work, but our focus on retention is unfortunately largely unknown to those outside our shelter’s walls. We do so much more than adoptions; we provide critical programing to meet pet owners where they are. That includes pet deposit assistance, funding for extraordinary veterinary costs, emergency pet food aid, supporting victims of domestic violence with fostering or rehoming services, transport services to monthly spay and neuter clinics, behavior assistance, and transitional fostering, just to name a few.
Many in our community learn about our services once it’s too late. A majority of pet surrenders could be avoided if owners knew about support available to them before urgencies became emergencies. Locally, the demand on animal shelters continues to increase. Awareness of retention services will be critical to improve animal outcomes in our region. We hope that we can be a first resource for owners in need of assistance rather than the last resort. If you or someone you know might benefit from pet retention resources, please help us to spread the word and get connected with our teams. Find us online or give us a call.
We’re here to support humans and their animal companions; we want to keep animals in their loving homes and out of shelters. Ultimately, that’s why we do what we do.
