Montgomery County Animal Shelter Re-Opening Stray Intake Services

MONTGOMERY COUNTY, TX -- The Montgomery County Animal Shelter ('MCAS') had noted a rise in the presence of upper respiratory illnesses. This seems to be all across the region as many shelters are battling Distemper. We will be opening our intake services more than we have already opened, however we are still asking for the community's help by fostering, rescue group assistance and adoptions. We will still be asking and encouraging people who find stray animals to help by allowing us to vaccinate prior to intake. Vaccinating prior to intake greatly increases the animal(s) ability to fight of viruses such as Distemper and remain healthy. Distemper is still in the community and without this support we will be seeing it in the shelter again. In order to be successful in these lifesaving efforts, we need the help of our community. We also want to continue to very strongly encourage everyone to have their pets up to date with vaccinations. We have held free vaccine events and will have another one coming soon.

We will return to stray intakes by appointment starting October 23. If you have a situation with a stray animal and are willing to hold onto the animal(s), please contact animal control 936-442-7738, option 2. Animal Control can then assess the situation. Our officers can administer vaccinations and provide other assistance with resources to shelter the found animal(s). You can also reach out to us at: shelter.counter@mctx.org. You can network these animals on social media such as on your neighborhood pages to find their owners. Again, if you should find a dog that you are wanting to surrender to MCAS, please give us the opportunity to vaccinate the animal(s) before surrendering. Even if you are only able to keep the animal for a limited amount of time that could increase the immunity that will develop from the vaccine to protect the animal from various diseases. During the time of closure we have been vaccinating animals for people willing to hold and have already begun taking in those animals as of the week of October 11th, 2021

MCAS has done several rounds of testing and the latest round was all clear with the exception of two 'low positives' which could be vaccine related, contamination, etc. At this time we will be focusing on stray animal intakes. Due to the shelters size we are chronically over capacity. This creates an ideal environment for the rapid spread of diseases. Therefore at this time we want to focus on stray animals.

Challenges arise from time to time and we are asking for our community's help and support. Everyone can help by fostering, adopting, rescuing, donating and volunteering.

MCAS is open for adoptions 11:30am - 5:00pm Tuesday through Sunday. Stray intakes will return by appointments.