Going Home: The PetSmart National Adoption Weekend

Photo credit: Amber Connaghan

If the bright balloons in the PetSmart parking lot didn’t draw people in, the yips and barks from the 13 dogs and constant mews from the 7 cats do the job, calling for attention, seemingly saying Look I’m here! Adopt me, pick me!

The National Adoption Fair weekend has overtaken PetSmart stores across the country, hosting animal rescues and shelters to bring their adoptable dogs and cats to find them good homes. The yearly event draws in crowds from those who even see the decorations and are intrigued, wandering over because “it just seemed interesting”, one potential adoptee said.

The animals outside the store, from the rescue PoochMatch based in Santa Ana, alert people to their presence, both barking excitedly and staring out with soulful eyes from their play pens, like a mutt named Brando. His adoption fee is $275, while fees for the rest of the animals range from $185-400 depending on their age.

Pups that are younger than 4 months have not been spayed/neutered cost more than their older counterparts have been and if people wish to adopt the young animals, they must sign a form saying they will spay/neuter their newly acquired pet.

All the animals available at the adoption fair were from rescues and shelters, some abandoned by owners, some relinquished for monetary or personal reasons, and some wandering the street looking for a place to call home.

People come to events like this to give deserving animals a good home, bring them into their families and love them. Last year in California alone, adoption fairs like this gave homes to 22,602 cats and 17,140 dogs and the adoption fees from the events were put to surgeries to spay and neuter more shelter pets to combat pet overpopulation, a major reason for needing adoption fairs like this.

In the United States, 29% of household pets obtained are from shelters and rescues, mainly adopted through events like the National Adoption Fair.

Outside the store, the animals are more docile. While they yip and bark, they laze around in the sun, sometimes dozing off even as one of the twenty potential adoptees starts to pet them, turning to their partner and whispering “Oh my gosh the cuteness, so sleepy. Let’s get him.” Inside however, it’s a different story.

Photo Credit: Amber Connaghan

Walking inside the PetSmart, eyes are immediately drawn to a small, shaggy brown-furred Chihuahua scaling his playpen in a Spiderman-like manner. One of the helping volunteers admonishes him, “Down, Spike!” But he doesn’t obey, just licks her hand as groups of potential adopters smile and laugh loudly, even drawing attention from the neighboring cashiers, as they size up little Spike’s adventurous nature.

In the playpen adjacent to Spike, another dog, a mutt named Lily, takes Spike’s idea even further and climbs to the top of the pen and tries to jump out as volunteers rush to keep her inside the pen exclaiming “Oh no not again!” each time Lily hurls herself upwards. After ten minutes of this however, they admit defeat and pick Lily up, carting her around to the fifteen people standing by the adoption area. Lily, with a panting tongue and a wagging tail seems happy she got her victory.

The volunteer, named Amber, has to maneuver around Lily’s playpen as her other canine friends run around it, bouncing from one side to the other, pushing and pulling the playpen into abstract shapes, causing the side to hit the water bowl, water sloshing out onto their paw pads. But as the dogs wag their tails and continue bouncing, it’s clear they don’t mind.

Spike, Lily, and rest of the 8 dogs and lone cat inside the store for the adoption, are from the ART N Paws Animal Rescue in Murrieta, and many of them were rescued from the “death row” at kill shelters. They cite the need for adoption to prevent animals from being euthanized due to overpopulation.

The goal for the adoption fair is for all 29 pets available at the Brea PetSmart this weekend to be adopted and get people interested in the rescues that provided the animals with the hope of someday providing homes for all shelter animals.