MIAMI – An animal shelter is meant to be a short transition. It’s supposed to be a safe place for small animals to stay just until they can get adopted. Sometimes animals spend more than a year in a concrete kennel, and the stakes are even higher to get them out of there.
Floral Beal, of the Miami-Dade Animal Services Pet Adoption & Protection Center, has her hope on murals in Miami’s Wynwood, a neighborhood that both locals and low-brow art connoisseurs from around the world frequent to explore colorful walls, art galleries, and craft breweries.
Beal said the “Take Me Home” mural at the corner of Northwest 25 Street and Third Avenue features a shelter dog named Lola to communicate an urgent message: “Now more than ever, we really need the community to adopt don’t shop.”
The mural has a mobile phone camera-readable label, or QR code, with the web address of the Miami-Dade Animal Services Pet Adoption & Protection Center to get information about the more than 500 pets that are up for adoption at the shelter.
Lola, the dog on the mural, found a home soon after the mural was on display. It was an accomplishment, but much more needs to be done. Dr. Irving Lerner, the president of the Miami Veterinary Foundation, said the message is urgent.
“Animal services is overwhelmed right now,” Lerner said adding, “People have to help! The county is not, animal services is not going to solve the problem. People, we all have got to do this together.”
For more information about how to adopt or to start a pet search, visit this page.
