JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The Petco Love Florida Mega Pet Adoption event is being held at the Jacksonville Fairgrounds on Saturday and Sunday.
The Mega event is a statewide adoption promotion with a goal of finding homes for 2,000 shelter dogs and cats across Florida. All adoptions are free, but there are some exclusions, and additional fees may apply.
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The Jacksonville Humane Society, Animal Care & Protective Services and 10 additional organizations were at the fairgrounds with hundreds of pets in need of adoption on Saturday and Sunday.
“Our adoption event started at 10 a.m. this morning, and we had folks out lined up outside at 8, 8:15 a.m. We had a couple hundred, maybe 200 pet lovers outside the event waiting for us to open the doors, and it was so cool to greet them all with cheers as they were here this week to adopt pets,” Lawrence Nicolas, CEO of JHS said.
Michael Bricker, Division Chief of ACPS said they’re trying to adopt out 500 animals between all the shelters.
“We brought 80 dogs today, we brought about 60 cats, and then we’re gonna do the same thing tomorrow. So we’re trying to adopt out 200, just ourselves, but as an event, we’re trying to adopt out 500 between all the shelters,” Bricker said.
For some people, it’s their first time adopting. For others, they’ve done this more than once. One woman said it’s going to be a great addition to her family.
“So we have Captain Jack Sparrow, we just adopted him. He’s a four-month-old puppy, and he’s so sweet, and she’ll keep with his little snuggle nose,” Shaquandra Morton said. “He’s gonna be my son’s ESA for right now until we take him through the proper training for a service dog for non-verbal autistic kids to give him his social cues. But he is going to be the best, perfect example as to give him patience.”
The event will run Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Click here for more information.
