All too often, elderly pets are surrendered to the shelter because their owners can’t or won’t put in the effort an older pet often requires. In previous years that pet would mostly likely have been euthanized for not being highly adoptable, but as our shelter progressed we gave senior pets a chance for a new life in a new home. Some seniors, however, had health issues that precluded adoption, yet still had quality of life, and wanted to live. For those pets we instituted our Hospice Foster Program.
Under that program, our wonderful volunteers would take a cat or a dog and love and care for that pet until that pet was ready to cross the rainbow bridge. The shelter would continue to provide health care for that pet and ultimately euthanasia if needed when the time came. The program is a wonderful outlet for wonderful pets who deserve to live out their lives with love and respect and also a blessing to staff and volunteers who didn’t want to face putting down a pet with life left to live, or to see that pet languishing in a cage or kennel in his or her twilight years.
Shelly Cassell, one of the most dedicated and compassionate volunteers the Albuquerque Animal Welfare Department has ever had, lead the charge to get the program going.