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Reflecting on 2024

Reflecting on 2024
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April 09, 2025
in Humane Education Column
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By: Nikki Ritter, Executive Director

Spring presents an ideal time to reflect on the number of animals helped through our community retention and shelter services in 2024. Last year, our team of eleven staff members, seven board members, and 92 volunteers helped 1,723 animals through our sheltering, spay/neuter, microchipping, safety net, and adoption programs.

In doing so, the average length of stay for animals was 21.3 days and our Asilomar Live Release Rate was 98.3%. Of the 635 animals sheltered, 85% of cats and 89% of dogs originated in Chaffee County. Others received were relinquished by owners living in surrounding counties or transferred in from shelters in need. Through our transfer partnerships with 11 shelters across Colorado and 1 in New Mexico we brought in an additional 49 adoptable pets to our community: 41 cats and 8 dogs. All 389 dogs and cats adopted from the shelter were spayed or neutered, up-to-date on vaccinations, and microchipped before leaving our doors.

Additionally, our community support programs, aiming to keep pets and people together have continued to become more robust, year over year. Our community assistance spay and neuter programs provided reduced or no-cost spay/neuter for 254 cats and dogs living in Chaffee County. In addition, 38 reduced or no-cost microchips were offered to owned pets. Our community pet food and supply pantry served 786 pets, and 19 pets received free emergency boarding services. We partnered with local dog trainers to offer 10 at-risk community dogs 25 individualized training sessions through our behavior intervention training program.

We partnered with Chaffee Hospitality to offer motel room stays for unsheltered individuals and their pets during the coldest nights of the year, offering 42 nights of respite and benefitting 17 additional community pets, and we partnered with Chaffee County Community Foundation to offer a Community Pet Fund that benefitted 22 additional community pets. AVHS maintained operations in two facilities: our main facility in Buena Vista and a police impound facility in Salida, which received 48 animals.

The success of our programs is possible thanks to generous support from our donors, volunteers, foster families, and partner veterinarians. It takes a village to ensure the welfare of companion animals in our community, and together we continue to work towards a safe and humane world for all people and pets.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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