Fort Worth animal shelters won’t be at mega adoption at Will Rogers center this weekend
The Humane Society of North Texas is hosting a massive pet adoption event at Will Rogers Memorial Center on Saturday and Sunday, but the Fort Worth Animal Care and Control shelters won’t be participating.
The shelters canceled their Facebook event for the 6th annual Humane Society of North Texas Mega Adoption Event, but a spokeswoman for the society said the event is still happening.
Brandon Bennett, director of public health and code compliance for Fort Worth, said the city’s shelters will not be participating in the event after long discussions with the humane society regarding concerns about preventing the spread of distemper.
Because distemper cases have been growing in numbers in the region, Bennett said the shelter has begun giving booster vaccines to dogs and testing more regularly. But distemper tests can come back positive for dogs that have recently been vaccinated or received a booster vaccine to protect against the infection.
A group of Fort Worth animal shelter volunteers and local dog rescue organizations that works with Fort Worth Animal Care and Control said the animals from those shelters won’t be at the event because the shelters couldn’t meet requirements for safety regarding distemper infections. Bennett said that is because of the false positives that have been coming back from tests done on dogs that have recently been administered a booster.
Bennett said anybody who goes to a Fort Worth animal shelter this weekend, though, can leave confident knowing that any animals they adopt will not have distemper or other infectious diseases.
Adoptions this weekend are free and Bennett said shelters will be staffed with extra employees to make the process of adopting an animal faster and smoother. All animals adopted from Fort Worth shelters have 30 days of health insurance provided by the city.
This story was originally published June 8, 2022 at 7:51 PM.