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Smith County Animal Shelter to close on Saturdays

The Smith County Animal Shelter will be closing on Saturdays due to the lower rate of adoptions and calls on weekends versus during the week.
(Photo: Smith County)

SMITH COUNTY — After staff said the increased hours were not sufficiently increasing pet adoptions, officials have decided to close the Smith County Animal Shelter on Saturdays.

The Smith County Commissioners Court made the decision at its regular meeting on Tuesday upon request from Le’Kisha Stinecipher, the Smith County animal control officer.

The Smith County Animal Shelter, which opened in downtown Tyler in December 2016, keeps stray dogs and cats found around the county as part of the county government’s animal control program and then puts the animals up for adoption.

The county government also has contracts with small cities such as Bullard and Winona, in which the cities pay the county to shelter dogs captured in their cities. The city of Tyler keeps its stray animals in a city-owned shelter in the western part of the city.

The Smith County Animal Shelter started offering Saturday adoptions in December, but Stinecipher said only 21 dogs have been adopted on Saturdays since January. She said that amounts to just one dog per week.

Stinecipher said the low rate of adoptions “does not justify the amount it takes to have a staffed employee sitting in the office and using additional utilities on a Saturday.”

By comparison, she said about 25 dogs are adopted during a typical Monday to Friday period, “and our rate of citizens coming in is a lot higher during the week. Our phone calls are triple the amount on the weekday versus the weekend.”

Stinecipher said the Smith County Animal Shelter did have success with a special event this past Saturday in partnership with the city of Lindale, when five dogs were adopted.

She said the Smith County Animal Shelter, located at 322 E. Ferguson St., would continue to be open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and closed from noon to 1 p.m. for lunch.

The shelter also will hold special adoption events on some Saturdays in the future, she said.

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