Our biggest news this month is that the Board of Supervisors has approved funding and forward movement on building a new East Valley shelter.

This is a huge win for the animals and animal lovers of Maricopa County and for all of us here at Maricopa County Animal Care & Control. While a lot has already been done in previous years to develop architectural plans for a new facility, there is still a lot more work to do but we couldn’t be more thrilled.

We do know that this new facility will be located in Mesa at Baseline Road and Lewis Drive, where the county already owns the land. It will replace the current shelter at Rio Salado and the Loop 101, which is showing its age and is due for replacement.

Over the years, the successes celebrated at the East shelter are attributed to the dedication of staff, public support, and the hundreds of volunteers who selflessly spent thousands of hours in the shelter to help these homeless pets.

We have not yet received a timeline for the project but will communicate as soon as we know more. This is super exciting news and a great time to be a part of the MCACC community.

While we are celebrating the announcement of a new shelter facility coming to the East Valley, we must still weigh the good with the not-so-good, and one challenge this month has been our increased intake of pets in need. As part of managing our capacity constraints at our West shelter, we have placed a limited number of dogs at our East shelter where we are currently offering adoptions this week Wednesday-Sunday. In addition, our foster program saw a huge spike in demand due to kitten and puppy season.

We are grateful now more than ever for our fosters, volunteers and partners who have stepped up to help support us in so many priceless ways. MCACC continues to search for the best possible outlets for our shelter pets every day, including working with our partners and future Bissell Pet Foundation Empty the Shelters adoption events.

Editor’s note: Robyn Jaynes is director of Maricopa County Animal Care & Control. The East site website is maricopa.gov/214/Adopt-a-Pet.