Salem's Northeast Animal Shelter Rushes To Aid Of Texas Pets

SALEM, MA — Four vans with eight staff members and 100 pet carriers left the Northeast Animal Shelter in Salem Tuesday morning on what will be a 4,000-mile round trip to help find dozens of dogs and cats from storm-ravaged Texas forever homes here in New England.

The animals are expected to arrive back in Salem as soon as Thursday and could be available for adoption as early as Tuesday.

The whirlwind journey is part of the new affiliation between Northeast and the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals-Angell Memorial that combines Northeast's national adoption capability with the MSPCA's community outreach and Angell's veterinary services.

"We are helping in the largest way we can," Northeast Executive Director Mike Keiley told Patch. "It's going to take a lot of creative maneuvering but the cats will have their own vehicle and the dogs will have their own place to make them a little more comfortable."

The vans were also packed with food and supplies for the 30-hour trek to Austin Pets Alive! — which Keiley said is "damaged, but functional."

Austin Pets Alive! is looking to move its current feline and canine residents to make room for temporary housing for animals affected by the recent snow and cold — which resulted in vast power outages and clean water shortages across the state — until their owners can take care of them.

Keiley said the team left at 6 a.m. on Tuesday, was set to arrive midday on Wednesday and will begin the journey back to New England tomorrow morning after a bit of rearranging, loading and just enough rest to make it a safe trip for them and the animals.

"It's a tight window they're working in," Keiley said. "But the team is so excited that a lot of animals will be helped out with this."

Keiley said the scope of this mission is built off those that each organization has performed in response to national tragedies like Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, as well as locally in the 2018 natural gas explosions in Lawrence and Andover.

"Animals are always intertwined with people when something like that happens where they have to make decisions about their pets," he said. "Animals have to be part of the plan as well."

The hope is that moving the dogs and cats to Massachusetts, where pet adoption candidates have been at a premium since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, gives them a much better chance at a forever home than if they stay in Texas, where shelters were overloaded even before the rash of brutal weather.

Keiley said while the interest is at an "all-time high" in pet adoption here, the moratorium on evictions has limited the supply of needy pets since housing issues are the primary reason while animals are typically turned over to shelters.

After each of the Texas pets undergoes a 48-hour quarantine period and veterinary checkup, they will be available for adoption locally, which Keiley said often has better results than when people try to adopt pets sight-unseen from different parts of the country.

"The real struggle when you are trying to do those adoptions without ever meeting the animal is that you are doing it based on the theory that it will work," Keiley said. "Then, if it doesn't, you have an animal that has been relocated and is back in another shelter. When the animal is local you can get a good sense that the animal and the person make for a good match instead of on the internet when it just seems like a good match."

Keiley said the other benefit will be the local veterinary check that will allow adopters to go back to the MSPCA or Angell with any future issues.

"The medical needs are all identified and taken care of," he said.

Northeast Animal Shelter, which will also hold a food drive in Salem on March 7 for those needing supplies for their own pets, is now also in need of more supplies for their stock after bringing much of it to Texas. Anyone able to donate is asked to do so through via a drop box at the Highland Avenue shelter or through ordering through Amazon and having it delivered.

Financial donations can be made here.

The Northeast-MSPCA team is chronicling its trip on social media here and will also post information on when animals are available for adoption.

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(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)

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