DAYTON — The Montgomery County Animal Resource Center will be returning to normal hours and restoring services beginning Monday, June 1.
The county’s animal shelter had reduced hours and staffing to help slow the spread of the COVID-19 virus.
The shelter will continue to encourage social distancing within the facility by limiting public visitors to five at a time. To ensure everyone has access to in-person services, visits will be limited to 10 minutes.
Anyone who encounters a stray dog is encouraged to attempt to find the owner by checking with neighbors, posting on social media, and calling the shelter for guidance. If attempts to reunite the dog with its owner aren’t successful, call the Animal Resource Center at (937) 898-4457, and the shelter will dispatch an Animal Care and Control Officer to assist.
“It’s often best for the animal to be returned to its home as quickly as possible, before bringing it to the shelter,” ARC Director Robert Gruhl said in a prepared statement. “Our goal is to make every dog’s stay in our facility as short as possible by either finding the owner or adopting into a new home.”
To meet the goal of connecting pets to forever homes, ARC has established its own foster program that will create a network of foster families who can temporarily care for animals before they can be permanently adopted.
Applications for the foster program are available at www.mcanimals.org/get-involved/. That webpage also has an application for volunteers to care for animals housed in the shelter.
Business hours are being restored to:
- Monday through Friday: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
- Saturday: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
- Sunday: 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. (for lost-and-found searches only)
Anyone wishing to adopt a dog can visit www.mcanimals.org before visiting the shelter to see adoptable pets. Anyone who has lost a dog can also view all lost-and-found dogs through that website. You can reach ARC at (937) 898-4457.
© 2020 Cox Media Group
