Furry faces looking for a forever home tugged at heartstrings far away from Bakersfield, and thousands took to social media to share their cause. On Twitter celebrity singer Ke$ha asked her more than 3 million followers to head to the Kern County shelter and quickly adopt a pet.
The Tweet claimed the shelter was being evicted and planned to euthanize more than 700 cats and dogs, who had not been adopted by Sept. 30.
"We are trying to dispel some of the rumors on social media, they are taking on a life of their own, we are taking the animals with us, we are relocating, not closing," Kern County Animal Control Director, Jen Woodward said.
At a news conference Friday Woodard cleared up the rumors her workers would euthanize the animals at the end of the month. The shelter is scheduled to shut down temporarily to move from its current location.
"We will move all the animals to a new facility and start caring for them at a new site. We are not closing, we have been evicted by the City of Bakersfield and we are relocating," Woodward said.
Woodward says about two weeks ago the false information that dogs and cats left behind would be killed started to go viral, but the shelter plans to move them to their new facility. What they really want is to find the animals a home; workers have even slashed adoption prices to sweeten the deal.
"We still need adopters, we still need rescuers but there isn't an end date for that," Woodward said.
In the two weeks since the rumors started adoptions at the animal shelter have sky-rocketed. More than 300 animals were adopted in just two weeks. But the shelter says just as fast as animals get adopted more strays are brought in.
If you are interested in adopting a pet visit www.co.kern.ca.us
