At the end of February, our dog kennels were nearly past capacity, with dogs even as young as five months old waiting for weeks to find a forever home. It’s not typical for our shelter to be this crowded in the middle of wintertime, but unfortunately, shelter overcrowding has quickly become an issue that is not unique to ARL.

Shelters nationwide have been experiencing an overcrowding crisis since last year, with 4% more animals entering shelters than leaving in 2022 (the largest gap in the past four years), according to Shelter Animals Count. Simply put, as more animals are entering the shelter than we’ve seen in a long time, and less families are adopting pets, our capacity to care for animals in our community can quickly become limited in a short period of time.

Thankfully, our community stepped up during our time of need by sponsoring the adoption fees of our shelter dogs. Within one week of reporting our critical capacity on social media, 14 dogs’ adoption fees were sponsored thanks to generous donors, with three of those dogs finding a new home that weekend! In turn, adopters have recently shared gratitude for the sponsorships, as they can reserve the funds they would have spent on the adoption fee towards pet supplies or future medical costs.

While kennel spaces are slowly opening back up, there are still many dogs at ARL waiting for their chance on a new home. You can find all our dogs who are free to adopt thanks to our generous sponsors below! If you are interested in learning more about one of these dogs, please contact a Placement Specialist at adoption@berksarl.org or 610-373-8830.

PS – Can’t adopt but still want to support us during this time of critical need? Learn more about how you can make an impact on shelter pets at home, or contact Alison Kleinsmith at akleinsmith@berksarl.org if you want to learn more about sponsoring a shelter pet!

Note: This post is not updated in live time. Please click the link to each pet’s bio to learn more about them and see their availability. Some of these dogs were sponsored before our promotion mentioned in the article above.