Homeward Trails rescues animals from shelters in Virginia and West Virginia that desperately need our help. These shelters lack money, volunteers and adequate facilities. While the staff at these shelters do their best, the animals they care for often must live without heat during the winter and in less-than-desirable conditions throughout the year. These shelters are also located in areas where pet overpopulation is a tremendous problem and adoptions are low. Many of the great animals we rescue were dumped on the highway, left in cardboard boxes, thrown from moving vehicles or simply left to wander the county.

Spaying and neutering is simply not done enough and therefore, these shelters must take in and euthanize thousands of helpless dogs, cats, puppies and kittens every year - all because people are not sterilizing their animals. For more than two years, Homeward Trails has been working closely with two rural West Virginia animal shelters: Fayette County Animal Control Center (FCACC) in Fayetteville, WV and the Animal Control and Welfare Project (ACWP) in Summers County, WV.

FCACC is responsible for the control and care of all homeless animals in Fayette County, WV. Fayetteville is a scenic county along the New River, located about 6 hours away from Washington, DC. Run by a dedicated group of individuals, FCACC has had their share of hardships in the last two years. When we first met the folks of FCACC, they were operating out of a small, temporary facility with no indoor kennel space and very few kennels in which to keep the animals they took in. Sadly, their permanent shelter had been hit by a flash flood months earlier and they lost almost 60 animals. These poor animals drowned in their kennels while staff struggled to save them. In their temporary facility, most of the animals had to be kept outdoors in cold winter conditions.

Fayette County, like many other rural counties, is overrun with stray animals. Spay/neuter rates are low and therefore the shelter takes in hundreds and hundreds of adoptable animals that are needlessly euthanized, simply because there is not enough space to keep them all. While FCACC operates a low-cost spay/neuter program and mandates that all animals adopted in their county be spayed/neutered, educating the surrounding community on the importance of doing their part to decrease the animal overpopulation is a long-term process.

The partnership that Homeward Trails created with FCACC has resulted in more than 1,000 animals being rescued and placed in homes. Each of these animals would have been euthanized without our efforts. Click here to visit FCACC's web site directly.

ACWP is located in a rural county not far from Fayetteville. Without a municipal animal shelter, ACWP was created to take in and care for the stray animals of the county. Operated by a small group of animal lovers, ACWP raises money through individual donations and small grants to care for the animals it takes in. They have built kennels and established relationships with local vets in order to reduce the euthanasia of their county's animals. Sadly, with so many homeless animals and few resources, they are forced to euthanize hundreds of animals each year. The partnership that Homeward Trails created with ACWP has resulted in more than 100 animals being rescued and placed. Click here to visit ACWP's web site directly.

Homeward Trails also works regularly with Page County Animal Shelter near Luray, VA. Please visit each of these sites as well to see their adoptable pets.