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Thursday, March 28, 2024

Local animal shelters merge to form regional Humane Society

<p>Chrissy Sedgley, the director of operations at the Alachua County Humane Society, and Margot DeConna, the director of development, hold Bernard and Louie, 3- to 4-month-old jindo mixes inside the examination rooms at the shelter on Jan 16. DeConna said, originally, she thought the two dogs might need time to be socialized before being adopted, but after seeing them, DeConna said the dogs might get adopted sooner. “I think they’re going to be highly, highly adoptable,” she said.</p>

Chrissy Sedgley, the director of operations at the Alachua County Humane Society, and Margot DeConna, the director of development, hold Bernard and Louie, 3- to 4-month-old jindo mixes inside the examination rooms at the shelter on Jan 16. DeConna said, originally, she thought the two dogs might need time to be socialized before being adopted, but after seeing them, DeConna said the dogs might get adopted sooner. “I think they’re going to be highly, highly adoptable,” she said.

Cats and dogs in rural North Central Florida have a new organization looking out for them.

Gainesville Pet Rescue, Helping Hands Pet Rescue and Alachua County Humane Society have merged into the Humane Society of North Central Florida, said Danielle Cummings, the Alachua County Humane Society development coordinator.

“It’s something that we just naturally started doing,” Cummings said. “We all learned how to leverage each other’s strengths.”

The individual shelters, which have worked together for the past two decades, saw a need for no-kill shelters in rural counties after Alachua County became a no-kill county in 2017, Cummings said.

Pet owners in neighboring counties would bring their animals to Alachua to surrender them because they knew the animals would not be killed, Cummings said. The merge would help fill the need.

“Animals don’t understand county borders,” she said.

The Humane Society of North Central Florida serves Alachua, Levy, Bradford, Union, Marion, Putnam, Columbia and Clay counties, Cummings said.

The organization operates out of two locations: a north campus at 4205 NW Sixth St. and a south campus at 5403 SW Archer Road, Cummings said.

The decision to merge came after a board meeting in January and was announced Nov. 8 at Woofstock, the groups’ annual fundraising festival, said Margot DeConna, the director of development for the Humane Society of North Central Florida.

Although the change will incorporate a larger area, all of the current services will continue, including adoptions, fostering, clinics and the Humane Society thrift store, DeConna said.

“We needed to expand our focus, our services and our resources to the counties all around us,” DeConna said. “It just made sense to impact as many animals as possible.”

Chrissy Sedgley, the director of operations at the Alachua County Humane Society, and Margot DeConna, the director of development, hold Bernard and Louie, 3- to 4-month-old jindo mixes inside the examination rooms at the shelter on Jan 16. DeConna said, originally, she thought the two dogs might need time to be socialized before being adopted, but after seeing them, DeConna said the dogs might get adopted sooner. “I think they’re going to be highly, highly adoptable,” she said.

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