Charlie Clark Nissan Brownsville received a special visit Saturday morning with the arrival of the Brownsville Animal Defense for a pre-adoption event outside the dealership.
Prospective families could look over, cuddle and play with the 18 dogs and puppies at the event just waiting for their forever home.
The Brownsville Animal Defense (BAD) nonprofit works to help find safe and loving homes for found and surrendered dogs in the Rio Grande Valley and to educate the public about humane dog care.
For Saturday’s event BAD reached out to Charlie Clark Nissan to help connect visitors to the dealership with some of their adoptees who are ready to leave their foster homes.
“When they reached out we definitely wanted to help,” Shirley Bralley, Director of Marketing and Community Outreach for the Charlie Clark Nissan, said. “Our goal is just to match these dogs with good families.”
Outside the dealership doors, the area dedicated to the event was bustling with activity as visitors moved from crate to crate to check out what dogs were available, including a few dealership employees.
Efrain Candanoza, who has been an employee at the dealership for several months, circled the dogs with an adoption application in hand as he made his final pick. Candanoza has two young daughters at home who love animals, and he believes would love it if he finally brought a dog home.
“My mind has been on adopting a dog since a month ago, but I didn’t have time because I’ve been working. Right now I’m really thinking of adopting one,” he said.
For this pre-adoption event, adoption isn’t necessarily a guarantee though for each applicant as the nonprofit has a process to make sure each dog’s specific needs will be met by the adopter.
“What we do is we take applications for a dog that they are interested in. They have to answer a questionnaire and then we review all of those applications and then figure out what would be the best fit for that specific dog,” Ashley Benavides, BAD board member, said.
From there if the dog is a good fit, families will pay the adoption fee — $165 for puppies and $150 for adults which covers vaccinations, spay/neuter and microchipping.
The goal of the event is to get a good amount of applicants for each dog so that way there’s a better chance of finding homes that will work in the long run.
“A lot of people have shown up, so we’re excited. We hope we get a lot of applications. We’ve gotten quite a few for our smaller dogs and hopefully we get a lot for our bigger dogs. They’re the ones that don’t really get as much attention as we’d like,” Benavides said.
The secondary goal is to help get donations to support and fund the nonprofit’s work. While the organization is always in need of items like dog and puppy food, leashes and harnesses and cleaning supplies, one of their constant needs is monetary donations.
Healthy dogs mean vet bills, and the organization relies on help from the community to provide the funds necessary to keep them going.
“It takes a community for us to continue being around. We can’t continue helping dogs unless we have the help of the people of the valley. So anything that they could afford to donate would make a big difference for us,” Benavides said.
For more information and to see what dogs are available for adoption you can visit www.brownsvilleanimaldefense.org or their Facebook page Brownsville Animal Defense – BAD.
