Orlando animal shelter transfers animals from Manatee County Animal Services

MANATEE -- An Orlando animal welfare organization transferred 21 dogs from Manatee County Animal Services last week.

The Pet Alliance of Greater Orlando, a new transfer partner for Animal Services, took some of the dogs from the Palmetto shelter, 305 25th St. W., last week including some of the shelter's long-term residents, said Sarah Brown, Animal Services chief.

"When we can see someone who wants to step up and help in this kind of capacity, it is kind of overwhelming in a positive fashion," Brown said.

As of Tuesday, there were 119 dogs and 29 cats at Animal Services.

While the number of animals is still above the shelter's capacity, it is less than what it has been recently. Brown said when the numbers reached "very critical numbers," she reached out to her contacts at the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

"These are all shelters they work with on a regular basis," Brown said. "I sent a begging email to all these shelters and The Pet Alliance was very quick to respond and help us out."

A few of the dogs from Animal Services have already been adopted, said Becky Rhoades, vice president of operations at The Pet Alliance of Greater Orlando and a veterinarian.

With room in their shelter, Rhoades said they wanted to "help the Manatee shelter with their big numbers of animals that they have."

"We hope to work with them again in the future just to help the flow of animals," she said. "When we can, we will help them."

In the future, Brown said she hopes to work with other shelters as well "as long as they are great shelters and especially shelters that get more traffic."

"For us to be able to get our animals to get a little more exposure is helpful," Brown said. "I'm certainly open to people helping us any which way they can. If we can keep finding transfer partners to working with us and giving our animals a chance at a forever home, that is ideal."

Claire Aronson, Manatee County reporter, can be reached at 941-745-7024. Follow her on Twitter@Claire_Aronson.

This story was originally published April 5, 2016 at 5:57 PM with the headline "Orlando animal shelter transfers animals from Manatee County Animal Services ."