DALLAS (KRLD) - The Humane Society of North Texas and ASPCA say they are running out of shelter space in the Metroplex, so Thursday morning, they sent about 140 dogs and cats to shelters in other parts of the country. The flight left Meacham International Airport in Fort Worth, planning stops in California, Oregon and Washington State.
"Every life here will be saved," says the Humane Society of North Texas' Cassie Lackey. "Consider our intake at the Humane Society, when I tell you we're up five percent month over month, we're talking thousands. We're not a small shelter. We're the largest in North Texas."
The non-profit, Wings of Rescue, provided the flights. The three organizations have moved more than a thousand animals since they started working together last June.
Lackey says milder winters across the South mean shelters in this part of the country are more full, while shelters on the West Coast and in the North have open space because fewer animals have been arriving.
She also says other states have stronger laws dealing with spaying and neutering.
"Here in Texas, it is a law that you spay and neuter your pets, but we simply don't have the manpower to enforce it," she says.
ASPCA's Teresa Holmes came from California to accompany the flight out Thursday.
"There will be people waiting for us in the parking lot in Washington and Oregon. When we open that van, they start looking; they're picking their dogs already," she says. "We're saying, 'Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait. We have to put them in the shelter first!' They truly get adopted right away."
The organizations have another flight scheduled for April 13. They say volunteers stayed at Meacham until 12:30 Thursday morning, filling out paperwork and making sure the animals were vaccinated, so they could be taken across state lines. Lackey says the same volunteers returned about 3 a.m. to start loading the plane.
"We need people. We need our North Texas community to step up and help," she says. "We're not city or state-funded. This is all done by fundraising."