By Makenna Kerns, Special to Nighthawk News
As you walk through the door, you see wagging tails and hear excited barks on your right. Soft purring and little mews come from the left, where all the adorable cats and kittens await your attention. If you get lucky enough, you’ll even get to see the office cat roaming around, purring at your feet.
The Outer Banks SPCA in Manteo has numerous adopting, fostering and volunteering opportunities and options to fit any and everything you’re looking for. Whether you want to bring a furry friend home or just help out and hang around, the SPCA has whatever you’re looking for.
The SPCA gets all its adoptable animals from all over and from different situations. Some are strays, some come from crowded shelters in other areas and others come from abusive homes. You can adopt an affordable and already-microchipped pet with a short 15-minute process.
Some people adopt from shelters to give animals a second chance at life and show them how it feels to be loved and cared for, while others adopt just to have a new friend. The Outer Banks SPCA is a no-kill shelter, which means the animals can stay there for as long as they need before getting adopted; some shelters only give animals a certain amount of time to get adopted before being euthanized.
“My mom was really lonely because she had COVID, so she adopted a dog while she was sick so that she wouldn’t be lonely afterwards,” sophomore Owen Cox said.
People can struggle with choosing between the different dogs or cats. Some will come up with creative ways to choose which one is the best fit.
“There were two options: One was a bulldog and the other was a pitbull, so she flipped a coin,” Cox said. “We could have gotten a different dog if the coin landed on the other side. The coin landed on the pitbull side.”
On the other hand, receptionist Shannon Ewers got her two dogs, Honey and Coco, last minute for her birthday. She and her husband adopted two Chihuahuas, a 6-year-old mother and a 2-year-old daughter, instead of going through a breeder.
“We have friends who have Chihuahuas and they have a bad reputation, but they’re really good dogs and especially mine are even better than that,” Ewers said with a smile. “They don’t bark and growl. You know, they’re not mean. But yeah, I think it’s good to rescue the dogs, too.”
The SPCA makes sure all the pets are spayed/neutered and have all their necessary shots. They will pay for all of this and have it done before you adopt your new pet, which is another pro of adopting.
If you aren’t quite sure if you’re ready to adopt, you can always foster a pet. Fostering is a good alternative if you and your family aren’t 100% sure about adopting. Many people foster their pet before they adopt just to make sure that they are a good fit and can adapt well.
The SPCA also offers a Foster-For-A-Day option. This is where you get to take one of the dogs out for the day and take them anywhere to help introduce them to new environments and socialize with new people.
Most fosters often turn into adoptions, even if that isn’t the intention. Some people will foster just to help free up space at the SPCA but will end up creating a bond with that animal. But, some fosters do not go as planned.
“Let’s just foster Fuchsia in case she’s a bad cat since this was the first cat we were trying to adopt,” sophomore Jasmine Cook said. “Right away, she runs under my bed and she does not even interact. We put food and water out in my room hoping that she would come out. I would not see Fuchsia. The food and the water was not eaten even after three days: This cat had not come out from under my bed.”
That is an example of why fostering before you adopt is a good idea. This failure didn’t stop the Cook family from giving fostering another chance, though. This time, they fostered a dog instead of a cat and it ended up being one of the best decisions they’ve made.
“So Blaze, that’s my dog’s name who we got from the SPCA: We fostered him first and then kept him right away. He is the sweetest dog ever,” Cook said happily.
Instead of fostering or adopting, the option to volunteer can be fun and helpful. At our SPCA, you can call or walk in and fill out a few forms so that you can volunteer. If you need volunteering hours, want to help out, be around animals or are just looking for something to do, this is a great place to volunteer.
The volunteer options at the SPCA are to walk dogs, help clean, help setup at events or play with kittens for enrichment and socialization.
“It was very fun to see the dogs and play with them,” freshman Isla Molton said. “I would (volunteer again) because I haven’t done it in a bit. But then I would want to go home with a dog. So after playing with them, having to leave them is hard, which is the only downside.”
Freshman Makenna Kerns wrote this story for her Intro to Publications semester project. She can be reached at kernsma1221daretolearn.org.
