SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (KY3) - Rescue and shelter volunteers said they are running out of room because of pet dumping, lack of spaying/neutering, and a more significant trend: pet returns.

Michelle Rehkop, an adoption coordinator with Rescue One, said they have been seeing more owner surrenders in the last four years.

“Owner surrenders are becoming more frequent. It really started to increase after COVID. We had a lot of adoptions during COVID, and then after that, people were starting to return to work, move, finances changed. There was a big increase in needing to return animals, and that has really been hard to kind of get under control since then,” Rehkop said.

Rehkop said one of the biggest misconceptions that leads to owner surrenders is underestimating how much they should budget for t

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