BATON ROUGE, La (BRPROUD) – The Companion Animal Alliance (CAA) has roughly 800 animals in their care, more than they can hold.

“We have more animals than we have kennels in our building,” Jillian Sergio, CAA Executive Director said.

“During the summer is always our busier months, but this year is hitting us harder than probably ever before,” Sergio said.

Sergio believes the pandemic could be the cause of the increase in animals.

“As much as I don’t want to say that it is because of COVID, I really think that is the only thing that makes sense,” said Sergio. “We are getting a lot of surrenders because people are moving, or their landlord won’t allow them to have them anymore.”

The problem is the pop-up kennels are only a temporary solution, and while it breaks their hearts, the shelter has to euthanize some of them.

“We are also having to make hard decisions right now, and euthanasia is the last thing that we want to do, and unfortunately we are at the point where we are having to do it, which is extremely hard on all of the staff here,” Sergio said.

The shelter has lowered the adoption price to $15 in hopes of attracting people to adopt. But if you are not ready to make the commitment, fostering a dog or cat allows the shelter to free up space while they look for a fur-ever home.