If you’ve perused our adoptable animals lately, you may have noticed some of our furry friends are “transports” from rescue groups in other states. Read below to learn more about what transports are, where they come from, how they work, and why we do them.

What are transports, and where do they come from?

When we have the space, HSCC welcomes animals from high-volume shelters and rescue groups in the South so they can find their new families up here in Vermont. Our transport animals are typically healthy, highly-adoptable kittens and young cats, but we also sometimes take in puppies, dogs, and animals with special medical needs. All of our transport animals obtain health certificates before coming to Vermont to certify they are healthy and disease-free.

In addition to helping high-volume shelters reduce their populations, transports also help find loving homes for animals rescued from large-scale cruelty, abuse, hoarding, and neglect cases, as well as those displaced by natural disasters. In the past few years, HSCC has partnered with organizations like Humane World for Animals and the ASPCA to take in dogs rescued from South Korean dog meat farms and dog-fighting operations in South Carolina, as well as cats rescued from a large-scale neglect case in Mississippi and a flooded animal shelter in North Texas.

Why does HSCC take in animals from other states?

We always prioritize our local animals before taking transports, but HSCC is also committed to helping the broader animal welfare world whenever possible. The shelters and rescue groups we take transports from are often overburdened - they have so many animals and not enough adopters to give them homes (and we have the opposite problem here in Vermont), so we try to balance things out in the animal world by helping these animals find loving homes.

This is particularly salient when it comes to our most common kind of transport – kittens! Unlike in Vermont, there is a big kitten overpopulation issue in Southern states like Georgia, Florida, and Texas due to their year-long kitten season and a lack of widespread spay/neuter programs. While we certainly have our own kitten season in Vermont, we often find that we have more adopters looking for kittens than we do kittens. Kitten transports help Vermonters find their new best friends, and helps kittens find great homes within days (sometimes just hours) of arriving at HSCC – when they might have spent weeks or months waiting for a home in other parts of the country.

We’ve found that taking transport animals helps everyone: it helps Southern rescues and communities by lightening their load; it helps the animals we take in by giving them a chance to find a loving home quickly; and it helps our community find their soul-pets they might otherwise not have met.

Do transports affect HSCC’s ability to help local animals?

Helping local animals in need is HSCC’s #1 priority! We take in an average of a dozen animals per week from our local community, and the number of dogs and cats we can take in depends on two things: space and time.

Naturally, dogs require larger, more specialized spaces in order to have the highest quality of life, so HSCC has a limited number of dog enclosures in our modest building (although we hope to be able to expand our shelter to build additional kennel spaces for dogs one day!). There is currently a high need in our community for dog rehoming, so in order to ensure we are able to accommodate local dogs in our limited spaces, HSCC does not have consistent or large-scale transports of dogs.

While physical space in the shelter often dictates the number of dogs we can accept in a given week, for cats it’s all about time. We have plenty of space in our shelter for cats (over 80!) – space that far exceeds the local need for rehoming – which is why we’re often able to accommodate local cat rehoming requests within a few days. The number of local cats we’re able to help is not impacted by our cat transports because of the time involved.

When a community member surrenders a pet to HSCC, we try to get as much information as possible about that animal’s history, needs, preferences, and challenges – information that helps us make their stay as comfortable as possible and helps them find a good match when they’re ready for adoption. Our medical team then gives them a full exam, vaccines, a microchip, any treatments they may need, and schedules them for spay/neuter surgery before we get them settled in their new space. Once animals are all checked in, it can take some time for them to decompress and complete any necessary treatments or surgeries so we can make sure they’re feeling their best before they’re officially available for adoption.

When we have a transport, however, all the animals arrive at HSCC fully vetted by the rescue partner and their medical team – animals are already spayed/neutered, up to date on vaccinations, and microchipped, and notes about their history and personality are automatically uploaded into our database, so we can check them all in at once and make them available for adoption within a day. This system allows us to fill up our empty cat enclosures with feline friends in need without taking time away from helping our community.

When do you get transports?

We typically accept cat & kitten transports about once a month.

In the past, we’ve accepted dog & puppy transports a few times a year, but we are not currently planning any dog transports so we can prioritize our community’s needs.

How can I adopt a transport animal?

Head to our cat and dog adoption pages to see who is currently available for adoption, and be sure to keep an eye out on Instagram and Facebook for special announcements and sneak peeks of adoptable animals!

Learn more about HSCC’s Transport Partners:

• Humane World for Animals
• ASPCA
• FurKids Atlanta
• Good Karma Pet Rescue
• Texas Cat Coalition
• PAWS of Northeast Louisiana