The Pima Animal Care Center (PACC) welcomed families and animal lovers Sunday afternoon for its second annual Fall Festival, an event designed to promote adoptions during a critical time for the shelter.
The festival featured food trucks, family-friendly games and prizes, and a festive atmosphere aimed at drawing attention to PACC’s urgent need for adopters and fosters.
The center offered free adoptions for all cats and dogs as part of the event, a gesture PACC hopes will alleviate its ongoing capacity issues.
“We’re at about 480 dogs in our shelter, which is still critical capacity for us,” said Kayleigh Murdock, PACC’s Public Information Officer. “We’ve recently been facing much higher numbers, so we’re happy we’ve made some progress, but we really need to get below 450 dogs in the shelter.”
PACC volunteers noted that nearly all the cats at the shelter had been adopted, a major milestone amidst a year of overcrowding for the center.
Murdock says that the holiday season could bring further reprieve, but that it’s difficult to know for sure.