The dog adoption business is booming in Miami-Dade and all it took was an infectious disease to get people moving.
Only a few days after the Miami-Dade Animal Service Shelter announced that dogs and puppies in the kennel had been exposed to highly contagious diseases, nearly all of the sick and possibly contaminated animals have been adopted, officials said Monday.
About 500 of the animals have been rescued by local animal groups and concerned animal lovers. The shelter waived the adoption fee to clear a little red tape and get the animals into a safe environment.
The shelter has suspended its canine operations while the area where the dogs are kept gets disinfected. But first officials had to find a place for the unwanted dogs.
Announcing they were ill wasn't the best way to attract potential new homes, but it turns out it did the trick.
The dogs were exposed to Distemper, which spreads from dog to dog through the air and is incurable.
Without the mass adoptions over the weekend, the animals would likely have had to been euthanized, which was a major concern for critics of the shelter when news broke of the endemic.
Local
Some dogs still remain and are being kept outside of the contaminated area, but people were pouring in Monday to look over the remaining pooches for a possible new family pet.
