Feb. 8—January is usually slow at Española Humane, with low numbers of new animals, which allows staff to prepare for the spring “kitten season.”

The start of 2024 has seen a staggering number of arrivals.

“Puppy season has already begun or never ended,” shelter spokeswoman Mattie Allen said.

The shelter received 377 animals in January, a nearly 50% increase over January 2023. More than 260 of those were nursing puppies.

Between 20 and 30 dogs and puppies have been admitted every day for at least two weeks, Allen said.

With just 23 dog kennels and a handful of puppy pens, the shelter has been “completely and utterly overwhelmed” by the influx she said, noting some days staff members have scrambled to find creative solutions for housing new animals.

Española Humane is paying to board some dogs at kennels in Santa Fe and Pojoaque, and many puppies have gone into foster care.

“We just don’t have the capacity to care for neonate or young animals that need up to eight weeks of care before we can adopt them,” Allen said. The shelter has a puppy adoption center at Ojo Santa Fe Spa Resort, where many puppies go after graduating from foster care.

The shelter remains committed to its policy of never turning away an animal from its service area, which encompasses Española, Rio Arriba County and Santa Clara, San Ildefonso and Ohkay Owingeh pueblos.

“We really feel like the most humane approach is to take any animal into our care that needs us,” Allen said. “No matter how sick or old, young, injured, behaviorally challenged, it doesn’t matter — we will take that animal into our system. It’s tough.”

She called Española Humane “the only true open-admission shelter in Northern New Mexico.”

The Santa Fe Animal Shelter & Humane Society has identified itself as an open-admission shelter but has come under scrutiny for policies that some say turn away cats. Unlike the smaller Española Humane, the Santa Fe shelter also requires appointments for admissions.

Along with its foster program, Española Humane has a team of staff dedicated full time to running a transfer program, in which animals in need of homes are taken to partner rescue organizations and shelters across the state and nation, Allen said.

Last year, the shelter transferred more than 750 animals to other organizations in vans and planes through partnerships with volunteer pilots.

It has seven dogs at the Penitentiary of New Mexico near Santa Fe through its Paws in the Pen program. A collaboration with the state Corrections Department, the program places not-yet-adoptable dogs with inmates, who train them for eight weeks. A dog trainer hired by Española Humane goes to the prison five days a week to teach dog-training skills.

“I feel like we’re constantly sort of coming up with new and innovative, creative ideas to get animals where they need to go,” Allen said.

“All of these creative programs that we have are quite expensive for us. [They’re] 100% worth it, but we 100% rely on the generosity of our donors,” she said.

Shelter leaders are not sure what has caused the uptick in dog and puppy arrivals. It might stem from the shelter’s growing social media presence or the community’s lack of access to spay and neuter surgeries during the coronavirus pandemic — although Española Humane has provided about 7,000 free spay and neuter surgeries per year since restarting the program.

The shelter’s numbers of new animals started growing last year. It admitted about 1,000 more in 2023 than 2022, Allen said.

“2024 seems to have started off with a bang,” she added.