The Bowling Green Warren County Humane Society has been named a Top 20 Finalist in the Zootoo.com Shelter Makeover Contest, according to Lorri Hare, Director of the BGWC Humane Society. Zootoo.com will visit the BGWC Humane Society at 2:00 on April 30th as part of the final contest evaluation.

The final decision on the $1,000,000 grand-prize winner will be named following a Zootoo.com visit to each of the twenty finalists’ facilities. The first runner-up will win a $10,000 cash prize, and the other 18 finalists will each win $5,000.

“We reached the finals because of the tremendous support of our community and their registrations on the Zootoo.com website,” said Hare. “We hope to show even more community support while the evaluation team is here on April 30th.”

A goal of the Zootoo.com Shelter Makeover Contest is to generate awareness and encourage community involvement in animal shelters. Community involvement played a key role in determining the finalists, and will also be important in the selection of the winner.

“At their visits to other finalist shelters, the Zootoo.com crew has been met by scores of supporters waving signs and banners,” said Hare. “We want hundreds, if not thousands, of our supporters on hand encouraging Zootoo.com to award the prize to our shelter.”

Supporters are encouraged to make signs and banners encouraging Zootoo.com to select the BGWC Humane Society as the $1,000,000 makeover winner, and be at the shelter by 1:30 on April 30th.

The BGWC Humane Society currently uses a temporary trailer as a pet clinic. Should they receive the grand prize award, it will be used for construction of a new, permanent pet clinic with dedicated space for operations, sick animal treatment, quarantines, and animal intake evaluations. A portion of the award will also be used to renovate the current shelter building.

The new pet clinic will provide improved facilities for spaying and neutering pets. In 2007, the BGWC Humane Society altered approximately 6,500 animals. Left unaltered, a female cat can begin breeding as young as four months old, and she and her offspring can produce 420,000 cats in only seven years. An unaltered female dog and her offspring can produce 67,000 dogs in only six years.

Spaying and neutering is the only way to stem the tide of unwanted animals in our region. With the large numbers of unaltered dogs and cats locally, we are seeing record numbers of animals coming to our shelter. In 2007 it was necessary for the BGWC Humane Society to euthanize 2,819 pets, a number we can see decline drastically in the future with improved facilities.