Animal Welfare League reopens East Valley adoption center
Mar. 22—The Arizona Animal Welfare League center in Chandler is open again, and just in time. It had been closed since the end of January and reopened on March 1 for renovations.
Fewer dogs are being adopted right now, so the AAWL main campus in Phoenix was packed with animals during the renovations.
Cat adoptions are up, dog adoptions are down. There are now more than 60 dogs listed available for adoption on the AAWL website. Arizona Animal Welfare League is a no-kill shelter.
"So a huge thing that we've noticed is just inflation," said Kimberly Vermillion, the director of marketing and communication at AAWL. "A lot of people can't afford a dog. Cats tend to be a little cheaper to care for, so that's what we're kind of seeing here."
The leagues get many of their dogs from small, rural animal shelters that don't have the space or staff to care for a large number.
The Chandler location once housed a former puppy mill, Vermillion said. That's where dogs are kept in cages and bred to produce cute little puppies that will be offered for high prices in malls across the country.
AAWL took over the facility in 2012 and has since adopted more than 13,000 dogs and cats, about a third of the nonprofit's animals. However, the facility needed a major upgrade. Some kennels were unusable for various reasons.
To pay for the renovations, the league started fundraising. One of the first to answer was PetSmart Charities, which contributed $35,000.
"We need to raise over $100,000," Vermillion said. "Our generous community of supporters through social media and through our different appeals that we did were able to raise additional money to do this $105,000 renovation."
AAWL puts many of its puppies and smaller dogs at the Chandler location while larger dogs are kept at its main facility close to Sky Harbor Airport.
Visitors will notice the change.
"These kennels were over 20 years old," Vermillion said. "A lot of them were unable to be used because they were deteriorating and there was different things that were wrong with them. We were able to refresh all the kennels, they're brighter, they're easier to clean and they're just safer for our pets.
"It makes it a more inviting space as well for the community to come in."
The nonprofit Best Friends reports that the lifesaving gap for dogs is on the rise. It was up 66.5% in 2022, the most recent year available. That gap measures how many dogs are coming into shelters, vs. how many are being adopted.
There was a 27.1% drop in adoptions that year, while there was a 53.6% increase in intake.
Vermillion said the slowdown in dog adoptions is a nationwide trend. To help, she said AAWL offers low cost services.
"What we try to do here at AAWL is offer low-cost wellness checks for our community," she said. "People can get affordable vaccines and wellness checks with a vet for their pets.
"We're trying to take down those barriers to make it easier for people to adopt and to keep their pets in their homes."
