The Blue River Pet Rescue is in need of more funding and support from the community.
Blue River Pet Rescue, a no kill shelter, provides care for animals without homes in Seward and surrounding counties. The shelter is in need of funding and foster families to take in more animals. As of now, Director Brogan Casey is the only regular employee to take care of the animals at the shelter. Casey said he is hoping to get enough funding to hire another person in the near future.
“I’m the only one who works here, so we would like to hire someone else. We just don’t have the funding to do it,” Casey said. “Once we can hire someone else, that’s when we can begin increasing that capacity [the amount of animals they can take in].”
The shelter is currently at maximum capacity, though there are at least 10 outstanding surrender applications. With a lack of foster families to take in animals while awaiting adoption and no workers, the shelter is struggling to take any more animals in.
“A lot of people like to donate food and give items for the animals to use. We’re always incredibly appreciative of that. But the reality is to properly care for these animals, we have to have a building to house them and additionally we have to have staff, paid staff, to come in and fill those bowls with food,” Casy said. “What is the food good for if we don’t have people to fill the bowls?”
Though the shelter gets plenty of volunteers, they haven’t yet found a way to ensure everyone’s safety when being with the rescue animals. The shelter used to allow volunteers to come in and help out whenever they wanted, but now only allows volunteers to come in on Sundays. Casey said they are hoping to expand volunteer hours soon, but COVID-19 and safety concerns have made it difficult to do so.
Casey also said the rescue is in need of more foster families. The more people foster animals, Casey said, the more space they have to take in more animals. Though they have had fosters in the past, it has been difficult to find people willing to care for an animal when they know they will eventually have to give them up for adoption. A foster family is able to adopt the animal they are caring for, but the rescue often then loses that family as a foster option.
“We do absolutely need more foster families,” Casey said. “You’re bringing a dog into your family and you don’t know anything, so you’re taking a risk there. But also, you know that if you end up really liking this dog, you might have to say goodbye to it or come to the conclusion that you’re adopting and then we lose our foster.”
With limited space, the shelter has had to turn away animals from the community.
“We only have so many kennels back here,” Casey said.
If more people step up to foster animals, the shelter can then free up kennels to take in more animals.
The shelter charges a $100 adoption fee for dogs and $50 for cats. Casey said the fee was to ensure the person adopting is financially able to afford caring for the pet and to vet out people who are not interested in actually caring for the animal.
Some of the dogs who are currently in the shelter have been adopted and brought back multiple times. One dog who has been adopted and brought back twice, Reeses, is not house-trained but can’t handle the cold and cannot be an outside dog. Because Casey is the only employee, it has been impossible to get animals trained to increase the chances of successful adoptions. Moose and Chance, two other dogs currently in the shelter, have both been adopted and brought back twice as well.
“What we’re trying to do at the end of the day, take the animals in Seward County and find them the best situation possible, however long it takes,” Casey said.
To sign up as a volunteer, you can go to www.blueriverpetrescue.org/volunteer. The application takes less than five minutes. If you don’t have extra time to volunteer, BRPR also accepts various forms of donations. You can find more information on their website.
The shelter is planning a fundraiser in February and hopes to begin holding one annually. The shelter also accepts donations at any time through its website, www.blueriverpetrescue.org.
“We need to be in a position where we can have multiple staff members to take care of the demand,” Casey said. “It’s going to take corporate sponsorships, a contract with the city, maybe. It’s going to take individuals within the community who love animals to step up.”
