5th Of July Is Spokanimal’s Busiest Day

SPOKANE — A lot of people spent the day after the 4th of July looking for their dogs.  The 5th of July is usually the busiest day of the year for Spokanimal.

The shelter is filled with dogs who ran away from home in the mist of the 4th of July celebrations, and their employees are working overtime.

Since Friday night, Spokanimal has received literally hundreds of phone calls all about lost dogs.

“Does she have a collar on a microchip or anything and what area of town did she go missing from?” Angela Scheres asks a caller.

This is Scheres’ fourth year working at Spokanimal, and she says every year the day after 4th of July has the same problem.  The shelter is flooded with dogs driven away from their home by fireworks.

“There are a lot of animals that are just terrified by such loud noises,” Scheres says, “and if they can get out, they will get out and run and try to hide and they don’t know what’s going on.”

Spokanimal’s shelter can hold up to 55 dogs and on Saturday they expect to reach full capacity.

“Last night, the animal control officer had a lot of calls right after the fireworks started,” says Sheres, “and they kept going to about 1:30 in the morning when he had his last one.  He picked up a lot of dogs, lot of scared dogs.”

Only one dog picked up Friday night had any identification.  Scheres says all the rest of the dogs don’t have tags and will only be held for three days.

“Come and look and see if your dogs are here,” she says, “to see if somebody has left a found report for them.  Just come on in and see.”          

Spokanimal normally closes at 4 p.m., but they say they are willing to stay as long as it takes to get these dogs back with there owners.