Weber County Animal Shelter eases overcrowding with online pet adoptions

OGDEN — The Weber County Animal Shelter is overwhelmed with animals, nearly 300 of them, which is why it has turned to an online option to keep more from coming in.

The shelter wants potential pet owners to fill in a form on their website.

You’ve heard it before, you might find your next best-friend at your local animal shelter. The folks at this shelter want people to know there’s another option.

“The shelter is the last thing we want to do,” Brenna Barnhart said. She knows first-hand that giving up a pet can be hard. She’s also the supervisor at the Weber County Animal Shelter.

“He was a very, very sweet dog. He was a very cute dog. He was a good a good family pet. But we were just in the right situation at the time to have him our lifestyle,” Barnhart said.

She’s talking about Pluto, a very energetic blue heeler. Barnhart used a feature called ReHome with the shelter in Davis County, where she lives.

“And the next day, I immediately found somebody that was willing to at least come to the house and take a look,” she said.

Not only that, she said it was a great way to make sure your pal is going to a good home.

“I was worried that I wasn’t giving him to the right family, but talking to the guy. I mean, after 10 minutes, I was really confident that I was making the right choice,” She said.

Now that is why Weber County has picked up the same program. People can fill out a form online to get the process going.

“It keeps the dogs and cats out of the shelter and the dogs and cats just transition into a home instead of having to come through the shelter life and then go into a home,” Lisa Weiss the Animal Care Coordinator at the Weber shelter, said.

By the way, there are some great animals here, too Weiss said.

“They’re not broken. They just had some bad luck. We’ve got a lot of nice animals, and they deserve loving homes,” she explained.

Through the ReHome option, Barnhart said she still gets the occasional update.

“He actually sent me a picture of Pluto the other day,” she said. She called it an added assurance that he was living his best life.

“They were out on a hike and he looked happy as can be,” she added.

You can set up a pet with ReHome in Weber County by clicking here.

The shelter will have an adoption event from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Young Subaru off Riverdale Road.