PetSmart Adoption Weekend

I found out that the shelter I volunteer for was having an 'adoption weekend' via Facebook.

PetSmart in Biddeford is hosting AWS for a very special adoption event this weekend. We’ll have dogs, cats, puppies and kittens ready to go home with you! 

July 23rd: 9 am - 3 pm
July 24th: 10 am - 3 pm

All adoptions are on first come, first served basis so plan to arrive early at PetSmart. Kittens and puppies are especially popular and will go home very quickly. We will hand out numbers to those waiting in line at PetSmart starting at 5am on Saturday and 6am on Sunday.

Visit our adoption pages to see which animals will be available on which days: http://animalwelfaresociety.org/adopt/

Even if you’re not ready to adopt a new pet, stop by for some fun. There will be food trucks, games and activities for kids throughout the event. We hope you can make it and help us celebrate a fun weekend of pets going home!

For more information, please contact Stephanie Delage at 207-985-3244 ext. 114.

Please note:

-All dogs and cats are spayed or neutered and up to date on all age appropriate vaccines.

-Adoptions run on a first come, first served basis.

-PetSmart Charities donates $35.00 to AWS for each adoption at the store throughout the weekend.

Food trucks? sign me up.  I wasn't sure if I would have enough time or energy to commit to volunteering, but I thought I could stop by and take some photos.. Everything is blog fodder ;)

My husband and I happened to be in the area around 2:00 PM on Saturday and I saw nothing. No food trucks, no big event, I was confused if I had my times right.  We purchased a few things when out of the corner of my eye I saw that they were in the front training area out of sight (and there were no signs pointing us in that direction) I sent my husband out to the truck while I ran over to take a peek at what was going on.  There was a bank of cages on one side of the room, and the kittens were free running on the floor amongst the people, and there appeared to be a lot of people.  I stepped into the room to get a feeling of what was going on and saw only one volunteer there. I patted a kitten and ended up leaving fairly quickly since I knew my husband was waiting for me.

The next morning I found myself heading back over to PetSmart and showed up at 10 AM. There were one and a half dogs left for adoption.  I say half because one was in the arms of someone who was about to say yes (she did) and then no more than ten minutes later someone else showed up and took the black lab that was left.  Even with adoption fees that were just shy of $400 they all went home.  Good for them, but part of me was sad that the cats aren't able to command that kind of demand. They are still considered 'free' animals. That is changing and kittens at least have $199 adoption fees. Considering just a decade ago we had such an overpopulation of cats that we were having to kill over half of them that came into the shelter, I'd say change is happening.. and that is an awesome thing.

Without any dogs to adopt out they took down the tents and moved things inside. There still weren't any food trucks, and no real signage to point out where we were or that there were kittens up for adoption. They made announcements on the speaker from time to time. At one point I went over to the adoption area and saw people looking at the cats so I mentioned that there were kittens in the front of the store and they did not know. I mentioned to the shelter that they should put a sign on the cat area to direct people to the kittens which they did. I also trimmed a few claws of kittens who had sharp pointies and weren't afraid to use them.

While I was there, several kittens were adopted. According to the shelter, 57 animals went home this weekend.  That makes me very happy.