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Rural Kentucky animal shelters feel the bite of inflation

pixabay.com

Inflation is hitting everyone and that includes Kentucky’s rural animal shelters. The high cost of food, supplies, and veterinary care is leading more and more people to surrender their animals.

Brittany Fain is the director of the Garrard County Animal Shelter. She said they’re going easily surpass last year’s numbers. In 2021 they took in 470 animals in total.

“Which is kinda high for a little shelter. This year alone in 2022, we’re not even seven full months in and we’ve taken in 437 animals.”

She said many people adopted animals during the early days of the pandemic, and now conditions are changing.

“People were home during the COVID times, wanted something to keep the company and now that everything is opening back up fulling, it’s now time to re-surrender your pet somewhere.”

She said they are running out of space at the shelter and may have to begin euthanizing animals. Fain says they see a lot of puppies and kittens coming in and is encouraging everyone to have their pets spayed or neutered to help with the populations.

Stan Ingold is WEKU's News Director. He has worked in public broadcasting for 18 years, starting at Morehead State Public Radio before spending the past 10 years at Alabama Public Radio. Stan has been honored with numerous journalism awards for his public radio reporting.
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