After a tumultuous 2024, animal shelters in Johnson County are looking to recover from soaring intake numbers and sinking adoptions.
Last year, Great Plains SPCA — a nonprofit animal shelter in Merriam that contracts with cities throughout Johnson County — saw shelters, including its own, struggle with capacity numbers.
“It felt like 2024 just took us back 10 years,” said Tam Singer, CEO of Great Plains SPCA.
To combat that, the Spay & Neuter Collaborative of Kansas City, a collective of animal organizations in the Kansas City area, will host spay/neuter clinics from Jan. 23 to Jan. 26.
“It’s really trying to raise all that awareness to the community, to understand it is a community problem,” said Singer, who launched the collaborative.

The problem is a national ‘crisis’
Last July, Overland Park-based Hill’s Pet Nutrition rang the alarm for animal shelters in its 2024 State of Shelter Pet Adoption Report.
“For the fourth year in a row, animal shelters across the country are facing an over-capacity crisis,” it stated. “New data from Shelter Animals Count indicates that animals of all sizes are experiencing an increased length of stay compared to 2019, fueling the shelter capacity crisis.”
In 2024, the Great Plains SPCA saw its annual animal intake numbers increase from about 5,000 to 6,500, including a drop in overall adoptions as well as a rise in dogs coming in, including a surge in animals that were victims of cruelty and neglect. For dogs, some would be adopted and returned to the shelter within 12 hours because they weren’t deemed a good fit, Singer said.
“We face constant, constant capacity issues, and it’s very stressful because then the animals are very stressed because they’re staying much longer,” she said.
They were not alone, as smaller shelters, like Melissa’s Second Chances in Shawnee, struggled with the number of animals being brought in from the streets, as well as staying afloat financially, causing it to launch a fundraiser in the summer of 2024.
“I have people call me constantly, ‘I found a dog’ and when they reached out to animal control, (they said) ‘There’s nowhere to take them. Just turn them loose.’ And that is terrifying to me,” said Melissa Kreisler, owner of Melissa’s Second Chances, in a previous interview.
On top of all of that, the U.S. is facing a veterinarian shortage, according to the Humane Society of the United States.
It all adds to a chaotic mix, Singer said.
“You’ve got a shortage of vet care, you’ve got a lack of patience in the world, you’ve got more and more people having pets, but not necessarily having the resources (to support them with) the rising cost of all the pet food, and the vet care is super expensive, and then it just comes together. And that’s what I think we’re facing right now,” Singer said.

Shelters are trying to find solutions
While shelters struggled with their capacity in 2024, they were also working on ways to keep their numbers down in the new year.
Since its launch in late 2023, the Spay & Neuter Collaborative of Kansas City aims to stop pet overpopulation by offering free spay and neuter services for dogs and cats.
“We had a pet crisis. Everyone could feel it and see it. And I felt very helpless. And I was like, ‘I can’t solve this on my own,'” Singer said. “So I thought, ‘What if I got all the shelters to come together and meet in a room and say, “Hey, what if we did something together? What if we try and spay and neuter more pets together?”‘ And that’s how it started.”
In addition, Great Plains SPCA is focusing more on the behavioral health of its animals, taking dogs out of their kennel for more walks and playtime so that they’re less stressed and in a better mental state to be adopted.
“We try and take a very proactive approach of going out into the community, trying to help the pets that are in our care, reduce the number of (stray) pets in the community, and then do everything we can to adopt those pets out to families that really are invested in them,” Singer said.

Other changes are coming to the area
Other shelters are also trying to adjust to the rising demand.
While the Olathe Animal Shelter, which is not a member of the Spay & Neuter Collaborative of Kansas City, only saw a slight increase in animals in 2024 — mostly due to a couple of large-scale hoarding and neglect cases — it is actively preparing for the future with a new facility.
“Our capacity is significantly limited due to the age and size of the building,” Olathe city spokesperson Cody Kennedy told the Post. “It’s a small, outdated facility which has outlived its usefulness and is to be replaced in the coming years.”
In October 2024, the city announced it had chosen a new site near Santa Fe Street and Ridgeview Road. The Olathe City Council approved two measures to start the process of acquiring the property.
For the city of Olathe, Kennedy said capacity isn’t as much of a worry as it is an ability to care for the animals under their roof.
“Our capacity varies greatly from other types of facilities in comparison,” he said. “It’s important to note that ‘being at capacity’ isn’t just about kennel space, but also involves the ability to provide proper care.”

How the public can help
The most important thing people can do is donate either money or resources to help the animals in their respective shelter’s care, Singer said.
“These shelters, they depend on donations. They’re not publicly funded,” she said. “We get zero government funding. We’re public. We get money through our donations.”
If people lack the funds to donate, simple things like donating towels, go a long way.
“Shelters always need towels, even old towels,” Singer said. “They always want towels because we clean up a lot of pee, and that doesn’t cost you anything.”
For those unable to care for a pet and are looking to surrender it, shelters ask that they schedule ahead of time, instead of making a last-minute decision.
“Most people, when they call to surrender a pet, they don’t say, ‘Hey, I’m thinking of surrendering my pet in three months,'” Singer said. “It’s like, ‘Hey, I’m moving tonight at 5, I need you to take my two large dogs.’ That is probably one of the most common phone calls we get from people.”
As more people get the education and resources they need, and high-stress national events like the 2024 presidential election have passed, Singer said she feels optimistic about the future of shelters in Johnson County.
“I genuinely do think it will get a bit better,” she said. “I think people are starting to feel a bit more settled. I do think it will be a bit better in 2025.”
Other Johnson County animal shelter news: Olathe paves way for bigger animal shelter to replace ‘woefully outdated’ one