Helping Hands Humane Society is an
Open-Admission Shelter

Helping Hands Humane Society welcomes every animal in need. We turn NO animals away. We are defined as an “open admission” shelter.

There are other organizations that call themselves “no kill” shelters, but we find the term misleading. These organizations are more accurately defined as “limited admission” shelters, because, generally speaking, they have to restrict the number of animals they take in. They may turn away those that aren’t healthy or behaviorally sound. To operate successfully, they have to limit their intake to animals that can be adopted quickly.

As an open-admission shelter, we take in ill and injured animals and those that are not immediate candidates for adoption. We receive pets that are no longer wanted, pets from people who can no longer care for them, as well as stray animals.

We work hard to give second chances to every healthy or rehabilitatable animal, and we do a very good job.

There is no set time limit for how long an animal can remain in our adoptions program. As long as an animal maintains general good health, a sound temperament and we have space, we'll keep a pet for weeks, sometimes months. We may put a healthy, but overlooked animal, in temporary foster care and return it to the adoptions program at a later time. We move sick animals into foster care where they remain available for adoption. We work with rescue/placement partners (breed groups and other organizations), who find homes for some harder-to-place animals. We do everything we can to avoid euthanasia of healthy or rehabilitatable animals.

But more keep coming, an average of about 30-40 every day, and the reality is that there is not enough space and money to accommodate for all of them. We humanely euthanize those animals, primarily cats, that are not chosen by new families. We also euthanize aggressive animals, primarily dogs, that are determined to be a potential threat to the community and those sick or injured animals that are not able to be rehabilitated given our resource limitations.

Helping Hands Humane Society’s goal is to save the lives of all healthy and rehabilitatable dogs and cats in our community.

To reach that goal, we are working locally and nationally with organizations like The Humane Society of the United States to make the community problem of surplus animals a thing of the past.

Our current shelter limits what we can and can not do, but we are confident that we will be able to implement new programs and outreach services when we are finally in the new facility that will make a huge difference. The additional space in the new shelter will help us house more animals for a longer period of time and provide them with better living conditions, more play areas and a higher traffic location for more people to visit and see them.

Here’s our action plan that we are working on:

--Completing the new building for additional space
--Stepping up efforts to promote spaying and neutering
--Involving ourselves proactively in humane issues through legislative processes and seeking the legislation to increase licensing in the City and County
--Increasing the number of shelter animals adopted to new homes
--Encouraging responsible pet ownership through expanded public awareness and humane education
--Supporting pet owners through dog training classes and behavior counseling

HHHS is a 501(c)3 non profit organization. HHHS respects the privacy of its donors and we do not sell or exchange any individual donor information.

 Your help and support can be; a monetary gift, becoming a “foster” family, housing a dog or cat in your home, volunteering at the shelter to socialize the animals talking to your friends and asking them to help and support Helping Hands Humane Society licensing your pet; making sure it has I.D. in the event it gets out spaying or neutering your pet.  Your help and support WILL make a difference.

Help us get the animals a loving home!

We need your help! We have a number of animals that we are putting to sleep because we do not have the means or space to keep them. This is the toughest part of our job. Our new shelter will have twice as many pens as we have today, but we need your help to purchase and maintain them. Our new facility will include veterinarian staff and space to help us treat and sterilize more animals and not have them euthanized due to health or injury. But again, we need your support. With more room, the new shelter will allow us to work with the behavior issues to insure that an animal can be adoptable, and once it can be adopted the number of animals euthanized for behavior will be reduced as well.

The bottom line is the homeless animal population is a community problem, and we are asking for your help and support to reduce the number of animals that we must euthanize. We hold them and love them for the brief time they are in our care and we let them know that we are so sorry that we have to put them to sleep. For years Audrey told us, “this animal is rapidly running out of time.” Today we must answer that call and say that this animal has the time it needs to get adopted into a new loving home. 

Thank you for your support.