Animal Care and Control is now open on Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. to allow people to come in and see our beautiful animals who are up for adoption as well as offering volunteer opportunities.

We are expanding our outside adoption sites to help us get more animals forever homes. You can find adoptable Anderson Animal Care and Control animals at Specks, Broadway Veterinary Clinic, Anderson Petsmart and coming soon to the Traders Point Petsmart on the north side of Indianapolis and Pets Plus Supplies in Broadripple.

Last weekend was a national adoption weekend, which found Animal Care and Control staff and volunteers at Petsmart and Specks showing and adopting animals from our facility. Four dogs and two cats were adopted, and four found their way into foster homes. These kind of events give us an opportunity to show the community how much we’ve changed in the last year and provide a greater opportunity to adopt animals.

FIDO Shelter Dog Prison Program (Faith+Inmates+Dogs=Opportunity) maintains 16 dogs at a time at Pendleton’s Correctional Industrial Facility. The offenders socialize and obedience train the dogs. Fifty-one dogs have gone through the program since Sept. 4, 2008. Thirty-six dogs have been adopted. All dogs come from Animal Care and Control.

The 9 Lives Shelter Cat Prison Program is also at the Pendleton facility. There are 73 Animal Care and Control cats at the facility being cared for by a team of six offenders. These cats are all on Petfinder.com under the Animal Protection League and available for adoption. So far, 10 cats have been adopted.

Saving Max is a new prison program that has been approved on a trial basis at Pendleton. Animal Care and Control is partnering with Alternatives Inc. to provide an inmate fostering pet program for victims of domestic violence who have nowhere to keep the pet when they leave the abusive situation. Most domestic violence shelters do not allow the victims to bring their pets. Often victims of domestic violence will not leave the abusive situation because they do not want to leave their pets and may not have a safe place to stay that will take their children as well as their pets. This can literally become a life-and-death situation for the human and animal victims of abuse. This fostering program can help save the lives of pets and animals.

This program will also target people with health issues who require a hospital stay or elderly who are going into nursing homes that will not allow their pets. Shelters across the country are faced with an overwhelming influx of animals released by their owners, not because they want to get rid of their pets but because they have no one to care for their pets when facing long hospital stays/rehabilitation or nursing homes.

People who are ill and in need of long term medical care will often postpone that care if they cannot find someone to care for their animals which can in turn put these people in life-threatening situations. It will help in their healing process to know that their animals will be cared for while they are receiving treatment and that they might possibly get the animal back when they are well.

The Indiana Department of Corrections is stepping up by allowing us to use their vast idle manpower to help with some of our issues with pets. These programs are not funded by tax dollars. If you would like to donate to help with the prison program, make checks payable to the Animal Protection League, P. O. Box 2242, 46018. Or you can purchase gift cards at Petsmart or Specks and send or bring them to Animal Care and Control, 613 Dewey St. in Anderson.

Maleah Stringer, program director of Anderson Animal Care and Control, is also president of the Animal Protection League. She can be reached at maleahstringer@aol.com.