Many animals get adopted at Pocatello event

Although Phil Meador is known to most people for his cars, this weekend he helped turn one of his dealerships into an adoption center for cats and canines.

The Pocatello Animal Shelter held its first annual Share the Love event this weekend where people came out for some free food and a chance to give one furry friend a new home.

“We selected some of our dogs and cats to bring them down for adoption and we’re trying to collect donations for the animal shelter as well,” Pocatello Animal Shelter Director Mary Remer said.

The ASPCA was just one organization who helped give the shelter a $2,500 grant to run this weekend’s event.

After November’s election, the shelter has been working toward building a new facility to better house and train these animals.

Remer said she was surprised to see the large turnout of people from around the community who came out to show support for not only these animals, but the new shelter as well.

According to Remer, there is good news in store for the future of the building, as the project is ahead of schedule with construction starting as soon as this upcoming summer.

“We should break ground by next year as long as things keep moving along and keeps this momentum, it’ll happen,” Remer said.

Meador said he has a personal connection to the cause and is excited to see the the animals allowed a chance to move into the new facility. He said he has participated in other events the shelter has hosted in the past.

“That’s kind of where we got the grassroots campaign going for the shelter,” Meador recalled. “As you know, it just barely passed this year, but we’re really thankful for that.”

A proud dog-lover himself, he says he’s even adopted a few animals from the shelter in the past. Two of the dogs he brought with him he had adopted from the cell program two years ago.

“Oh it’s not just dogs, but we have four cats that have come from the shelter. I think we’ve had as many as eight,” Meador said.

Remer said the crowd was so large, they adopted-out 10 dogs in the first hour the event kicked off. By the end, that rate slowed slightly, but was still up to a total of 17 dogs and nine cats – that’s almost half of the animals who resided at the shelter to begin with.

Many who did not stop by to adopt, donated hours of volunteer hours, money, and even bags of dog food placed neatly under the event’s Christmas tree standing at the front of the room.

Remer also mentioned many of the proceeds from the donations collected this weekend will also go toward helping the Humane Society.