Hill Country Humane Society needs your help for $10,000 award
The Hill Country Humane Society, 9150 RR 1431 in Buchanan Dam, could win $10,000 in an online contest held by Invisible Fence. The nonprofit local shelter is in sixth place as of Aug. 17 and needs nominations from residents to make it to first. File photo
You can be the Hill Country Humane Society‘s best friend by helping it win $10,000. The Buchanan Dam animal shelter is competing against other shelters nationwide in the From Shelter to Forever Home contest by Invisible Fence.
All you have to do is nominate it online no later than Aug. 31. Contest rules mandate only one vote per email address. The Knoxville-based Invisible Fence manufactures wireless and fenceless systems designed to protect pets from escaping.
Hill Country Humane Society Director Paighton Corley hopes residents can push the shelter to the top of the contest’s leaderboard.
“It takes less than 10 seconds (to nominate),” she said. “It’s very quick and really would have a huge impact on our shelter and animal welfare in general.”
The 75-pet-capacity shelter, 9150 RR 1431 in Buchanan Dam, has been cramped this summer.
“For lack of a better word, we’re drowning,” Corley said. “We have over 100 animals right now. It’s the most we’ve had all year. Our adoptions are very slow and intakes are coming in quicker and quicker. We can’t place them as quick as they are coming in.”
HCHS strictly relies on a combination of individual donations and local government contracts to feed, care, and house stray dogs and cats.
“We are contracted with seven entities,” Corley said. “We have annual contracts with them, so basically, each animal we take in from them, they give us an impound amount. It’s really not that much. We primarily run off of donations.”
The $10,000 contest award would go a long way.
“We’d use it for our MASH program,” Corley said. “It’s a spay-and-neuter program that we purchased in November. It would pay for multiple clinic days. That would be a lot of animals we could have fixed.”