City of Palm Coast Recognizes Animal Cruelty Awareness Month

Tuesday April, 09 2024

The City of Palm Coast is proud to recognize April as Animal Cruelty Awareness Month, partnering with SMART (Saving Missing Animals Response Team) Animal Rescue to bring attention to this important subject.

SMART Animal Rescue is the creation of Caroline Johnson, a local resident who brought her passion for animals to the forefront by founding the organization in 2022, which works to provide rescue, rehab, foster and permanent home efforts to local dogs, many of whom have been subject to neglect or cruelty. The organization frequently works with Palm Coast Animal Control to assist in seeing these efforts through. Additionally, SMART is committed to providing medical care to families who need assistance in providing for their animals who have specific care or medicine.

“What started as an objective of mine to help with missing or lost dogs via lost pet pages online has become a large-scale endeavor as we work to help lost dogs, many of whom have been dumped by their owners and/or have been subject to situations of abuse or neglect in their previous homes,” Johnson said. “We want to encourage citizens in the community who witness animal abuse, cruelty, to contact Palm Coast Animal Control so that they, and our organization can help these animals in any way we can – their lives just may depend on it.”

According to the World Animal Foundation, nearly 390,000 dogs are euthanized in shelters each year. In 2023, SMART was able to save nearly 200 dogs between their foster and adoption efforts, as well as medical care. Over the next two months, the organization will also take part in 2 City of Palm Coast events – as the selected beneficiary for the Food Truck Tuesday event on April 16, as well as the city’s 4^th Annual Touch-a-Truck event on May 11, where they will have dogs on-site available for adoption. For more details on these events, visit palmcoast.gov/events

For more information on SMART, visit smartflagler.com

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