ST. LOUIS — Care STL says more and more animals keep coming in, and the number of adoptions aren't keeping up.
Jordan Larkin started as a caregiver at the Care STL shelter in March.
"I remember when we were down to like 30 dogs. It was so nice. We were like how are we going to spend our days? We would spend 30-40 minutes outside in the play yard with each dog and they would have a blast during the day," Larkin said.
It's much different now that they have four times the amount of dogs with only 10 caregivers on staff.
"We come in as early as 8 a.m., and we work 10 hour days to come in and be able to care for these dogs. We're trying to get them three walks a day it just really cuts down on their enrichment time," Larkin said.
"Since the beginning of summer, we've had about 810 animals come into the shelter. It's a lot," Cate Redfern with Care STL said.
She says they have about 375 animals currently, 175 are in the shelter and the rest are in foster homes.
Redfern says they really only have the means to handle 70 animals in the shelter at one time.
"We would like to see about five animals leave per day, either for adoption or for foster to get our shelter back to a number that is manageable for our staff and tolerable for the animals," Redfern said.
There are about 120 dogs inside the shelter and 82 of them are ready to be adopted or fostered today.
Nyquesha Thomas and her family came to the shelter after seeing a post on Facebook about the overcrowding.
"I couldn't do a monetary donation so I decided to come in and see how I could help," Thomas said.
She's now fostering three kittens for a week and plans to foster even more, hoping others will do the same.
"I'm only one person, but I would encourage whoever can to help out. Please just help out," Thomas said.
The shelter says it took in about 2,100 animals total last year.
It's on track to exceed that amount, with the 810 animals they took in this summer alone.
If you'd like to adopt, foster or volunteer visit the Care STL website.