PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY, Md. — Dozens of dogs are on the urgent adoption list at the Prince George's County Animal Services Facility & Adoption Center. As of 10:20 a.m. Thursday morning, 13 or 14 dogs still need to be adopted, down from 32 earlier that morning.
The deadline to save these dogs from being euthanized has been extended from noon to 6 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 8.
Volunteers with the shelter tell us this is the largest urgent list they have ever seen.
Volunteers are sounding the alarm about the current pit bull ban in place in Prince George's County. The legislation has been in place since 1997 and because of it pit bulls or pit bull mixes at the shelter cannot be adopted out to people who live in the county.
"It puts like a really strong burden on the facility here the staffing there’s so many dogs to care for and we feel like if these dogs were allowed to be adopted in county it would kind of lighten the load for everybody," said Amy Pergosky, who volunteers regularly. She's been an advocate of getting rid of the ban for years.
Right now, 28 dogs on the urgent list fall are identified as pitbulls or pit bull mixes. Local rescues like Lovepaws and Vindicated Pit bull Rescue have found space for these dogs but say now they’re at capacity and are hoping something will be done to alleviate the strain on their organizations.
"We face these urgent lists on a weekly basis and we have to consider the financial impacts too a lot of the dogs that we pull are sick they have upper respiratory infections , they’re not spayed or neutered and all of that falls to the rescue organization," said Katharina Hemingway, with Lovepaws.
"It’s not a shelter problem they’re here to help and they’re doing the best they can it’s really a county problem a community problem," said Amy Osterman with Vindicated Pitbull rescue. Osterman says in the last 10 years, Vindicate has been operating in Virginia, they have taken in over 200 dogs from the Prince George's County Animal shelter.
"Our goal is to do this engagement campaign that we’ve already started to set up that will happen over the next month where we are going to have town halls and really ask people what do you think our policy needs to be to keep you safe around animals," said Andrea Crooms, director of the county's department of environment when asked if she thought the county's breed specific legislation was outdated.
For the month of August, all adoption fees are waived. The deadline to claim a dog on the urgent list is noon today, and the dog must be picked up by 6 p.m. Thursday. The address for the shelter is 3750 Brown Station Rd, Upper Marlboro, MD 20772.