BEFORE ADOPTION
Surgery, every time
Spay or neuter for every animal that goes home. This is the single largest recurring cost the shelter carries, and the law leaves no way around it.
Our work
Nobody there puts an animal down for running out of room.
The Blytheville Humane Society runs as a no-kill shelter on Arizona Street. That is a decision with a price attached, and the price arrives every single day: food, litter, vaccinations, heartworm tests, and surgery for every animal before it is allowed to go home.
Orphan Annies Inc exists to pay that bill. We are not a shop that gives to charity on the side. We are a charity whose entire method of raising money happens to be a shop.
What a dollar actually buys
An animal does not leave the shelter half-done.
Arkansas law is strict about this: an animal held in any shelter in the state has to be spayed or neutered before it can be adopted out or returned to an owner. It is not optional and it is not cheap.
BEFORE ADOPTION
Vaccinated and tested
A rabies vaccine, age-appropriate shots, and for dogs over four months, a heartworm test. Heartworm is endemic in this part of Arkansas and treating a positive dog costs many times what testing does.
EVERY DAY
Kept until somebody comes
No-kill means an animal stays as long as it takes. Food, litter, bedding, heating and vet care for weeks or months, for an animal nobody has claimed yet.
The shelter charges $125 to adopt a dog, $50 for a kitten and $25 for a cat, and that fee covers the surgery, the vaccines, the heartworm test and the vet certification. It does not come close to covering the weeks of care before somebody walked in. The difference is what fundraising is for.
Beyond the kennels
The cheapest animal to care for is the one never born stray.
The shelter is working towards a low-cost spay and neuter programme for the wider area — the kind of thing that reduces the number of animals arriving in the first place, rather than housing them better once they do.
Prevention is unglamorous and it does not photograph well, which is exactly why it is chronically underfunded. It is also the only thing that changes the arithmetic in a county this size.
Where to find them
Adoptions happen at the shelter, not at our store.
We raise the money; the Blytheville Humane Society does the animal work. If you are looking to adopt, reclaim a lost pet, or surrender one, they are the people to call — not us.
Blytheville
Humane Society
- Shelter address
- 2530 Arizona St
Blytheville, AR 72315 - Shelter phone
- (870) 838-5512
- Adoption fees
- Dogs $125 · Kittens $50 · Cats $25
Surgery and shots included - Also handles
- Reclaims from Blytheville Animal Services
What we do, and what we don’t
Orphan Annies Inc does not house animals, run adoptions or take surrenders. We have no kennels and no veterinary staff. What we have is a thrift store, a crew of volunteers and no payroll, and the whole of what we make goes to the shelter.
The IRS calls this a Type II supporting organization — a charity that exists to fund another charity. It is an unglamorous shape for a nonprofit and it is exactly what we are.