Nearly 700 stray dogs have been adopted in the past year from Summit County Animal Control (SCAC), but the system remains full to the brim.
Intake levels also remain high at the county’s dog pound — adoptions help, but they do not “eliminate the crisis,” said Greta Johnson, the assistant chief of staff for Summit County Executive Ilene Shapiro. The moment a family walks out with an adopted dog, another stray dog often arrives to fill the space, she said.
SCAC has space for about 90 stray dogs at a time. The shelter is required by state law to accept strays from Summit County townships, but the contract the City of Akron has with the shelter limits how many city dogs the shelter will take.
“The city only pays for a certain number of cages,” Johnson said. “Every dog that we take in from Akron fills one of those cages, because we have to keep space available for the strays we are legally required to accept from the townships. We don’t have the ability to go beyond our capacity.”…