The Pulaski County Animal Shelter: A temporary place for those searching for a fur-ever home
By Carla Slavey
Imagine having such a love and devotion for taking care of animals that practically every waking moment is dedicated to trying to find them their forever homes.
Because it’ s not just holding a dog or a cat for a few minutes and then handing them off to someone else. It could take days, weeks, or even months to place that animal. And in the mean time, it’ s your responsibility to care for them. That means feeding them, making sure they get exercise, giving them the medical care they need, and, above all, making sure they live in a clean, safe environment.
That is the goal for the staff of the Pulaski County Animal Shelter.
Located, appropriately enough, on Adopt Me Lane in Somerset, the Pulaski County Animal Shelter takes in stray, surrendered or otherwise unwanted cats and dogs, and places them in the homes they are best suited for.
According to Adoption Manager Kim Sears, that might mean adopting them out to local families from Pulaski or the surrounding areas.
It more often means, however, placing those animals with rescue groups, many of which are out of state.
“ We ship a lot of our dogs north,” she said, meaning northern states like Ohio and New Jersey.“ We ship almost all our dogs north, because they have better spay / neuter laws in general. They don’ t have the overflow. In New York, it’ s hard for them to get puppies, so we send them up to there.”
The key is those spay and neuter laws, which are more lax in this area. Because of that, the shelter takes in
Pulaski County Animal Shelter Adoption Manager Kim Sears plays with one of the shelter’ s dogs in the fenced in yard at the shelter.
Photo by Carla Slavey
more puppies and kittens than they would like.
Space is limited at the shelter, Sears explained. There are only 28 kennels for dogs. Each kennel can hold more than one dog, but the staff only groups dogs that come in together – whether they were surrendered by their family and were bonded to begin with, or if it is a litter of puppies, with or without their mother.
Otherwise, only one dog can be placed in a kennel. That makes those kennels fill up fast.
“ The way we make it work is the transports every week, and working our tails off to get them where they need to be for these rescues,” Sears said.“ And with our rescues, we’ re finding out all over the place they are full. The Humane Society is full, the( other) shelters are full. Everywhere is full.” That’ s one of the reasons both she and Animal Control Officer Adam Scales strongly encouraged pet owners to have both dogs and cats spayed or neutered.
“ We’ ve got five separate litters of puppies in here right now,” Scales said during a mid-March interview.“ And we stay full with puppies. It’ s just sad that a lot of them don’ t have anywhere to go. We work with rescues quite a bit. They do an awesome job of pulling from us. I think last year or the year before last, we averaged around 1,700( dogs) a year. … A lot of those are puppies. If everyone could go to a spay and neuter program, that would help us out tremendously.”
Sears added that last year the shelter took in 1,660 dogs, and estimated the number they had taken so far in 2025 at
14 • SEKY- Southeast Kentucky Life april 2025