ROCKINGHAM — The Richmond County Animal Shelter is continuing its efforts to find homes for the pets crowding its cages.
The shelter announced in a Facebook post on Thursday that it is “beyond full capacity and experiencing low adoption rates,” and therefore unable to accept any more animals.
The shelter previously announced on both June 11 and 18 that it was at capacity.
According to Thursday’s post, all owner surrenders will be placed on a waiting list and all strays must go through Animal Control.
“We are doing everything we can to care for the animals already in our shelter, but we need your help,” the post reads. “Until we can get more of our current animals adopted or into foster homes, we simply cannot take in more.”
RCAS
The shelter has tried several options to remedy its overpopulation problem, including offering $10 adoptions on July 10; as well as adoption events, with the most recent being June 20.
Adoption fees were waived on July 8 for large and medium dogs and all dogs the previous day.
Since taking over operations in October 2024, Director Tessie Caulder-Brigman and her staff have worked to make the shelter as close to a no-kill facility as possible.
According to the Best Friends Animal Society: “No-kill is defined by a 90% save rate for animals entering a shelter and is a meaningful and common-sense benchmark for measuring lifesaving progress.”
From Jan. 1-June 1, the shelter took in 248 dogs and 139 cats, according to Caulder-Brigman. Of those, 10 dogs and three cats were euthanized — mostly due to severe aggression or injury.
RCAS
One cause for the recent influx, she said, was that families were dropping off pets to go on vacation, instead of boarding or finding a pet sitter.
She added that the shelter hasn’t had a problem with illegal drop-offs recently, like she did shortly after becoming director.
On Thursday, Caulder-Brigman said two cats were trapped at the site of a home demolition. Those will be vaccinated, spayed or neutered and released.
As for Animal Control, which is a separate entity, she said there is one officer for the county — with an open position for a second — one for Rockingham and a part-timer for Hamlet.
“I knew, taking this job, that I was not going to make everybody happy,” she said. “But I do find a lot of joy in helping people.”
In addition to matching people with pets, Caulder-Brigman said she has taken pet food, shelter and fencing to struggling families to keep them from having to surrender their animals. She encourages others to do the same “instead of putting them on blast.”
RCAS
The shelter receives $360,000 annually from the county to cover staffing, food, supplies and other operational costs. However, it’s local donations that have helped keep the facility afloat.
“We would not be where we are without help from the community,” she said.
Part of that assistance came from a recent raffle by Full Custom Fabrication and Performance, that brought in $3,000 for the shelter. The winner of the raffle even donated back the prize lawnmower.
The shelter works with the Humane Society of Richmond County and Operation Richmond County Fix to find fosters and help get pets spayed or neutered — the lack of the latter being one of the main contributing factors to the overcrowding obstacle.
HART Transport is another organization that helps by moving animals to rescues and keeping them out of the shelter.
Caulder-Brigman said she is “grateful” for all of the partnerships and support.
However, she said no one is pulling mixed-breed medium to large dogs and the shelter relies on adoptions and fosters for moving those.
Anyone interested in adopting, fostering or donating is encouraged to contact the shelter at 910-895-0335 or rcashelter28379@gmail.com.
RCAS
