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Fayette Friends of the Animal Shelter is a civic group in Fayette, Alabama that is dedicated to improving the lives of abandoned pets. Most people immediately think of making Shelter life better or facilitating adoptions. That is what we thought when we formed the group. With time we are learning that there are scenarios that we did not anticipate. One of the most daunting is the number of unwanted litters of puppies and kittens. There are so many that most days the Shelter is overwhelmed and over capacity. It is not uncommon that people attempting to surrender pets are turned away.  This tragic circumstance can only be remedied by either: (A) Massively increasing the capacity of the Shelter. That would entail much larger facility and many more staff members. Most county governments has little or no appetite for such expenditures. (B) Embarking on a rigid program of laws and financial incentives to drastically increase the number of pets that are sterilized which, in turn, reduces unwanted litters of puppies and kittens. The other scenario that we are encountering, that was not anticipated, are the number of surrenders of puppies and kittens at the Shelter that have no mother and are too young too survive without extraordinary effort for several days to a few weeks. With normal staffing there is no one at the Shelter to bathe and feed small animals after hours and periodically throughout the night. Without feeding and cleaning, tasks that most mother cats and dogs perform, the little ones succumb to hunger and poor sanitation. Therefore a decision, a gut-wrenching, soul defining decision, must be made about what to do when such helpless creatures are found or brought to the Shelter. Our group is an animal welfare league. We set out to improve the lives of pets that became homeless through no fault of their own. To the utter maximum extent possible that includes orphan kittens and puppies. As you can imagine that means that we must be prepared to take such puppies and kittens off Shelter premises and administer the intensive care (frequent feeding, cleaning, vet visits, medicine administration) that must be done until the little ones escape danger. This section of our website is dedicated to such stories that have taken place right here in Fayette.