Denver Animal Protection

Denver Animal Protection is excited to announce the reopening of their low-cost vaccination clinics to the public after shutting down in November due to COVID-19. These clinics will help ensure local dogs and cats are licensed and microchipped as well as vaccinated to help in getting lost pets back home.

After 30+ years, Denver voters voted to allow pit bull-type dogs in the City with a permit. Denver Animal Protection started public breed assessments and issuing restricted-breed permits on January 2. Additionally, DAP can now directly adopt pit bulls (previously, they had to be transferred to other organizations for adoption). The very first pit bull, Gumdrop, was adopted the first weekend. 

As part of the HASS lost and found pilot working group, Denver Animal Protection has identified the need to restructure our web pages related to Intake, Lost Pets and Found Pets. We now offer improved tools to ease navigation and to also give alternatives for re-homing pets prior to bringing them to the shelter. We hope these approaches will mean fewer animals at the shelter (both surrenders and found animals) and increased pet reunions.

Denver Animal Protection’s Community Engagement team has been providing proactive pet owner support since 2016 but has really shifted in 2020. We have been able to provide free vaccinations, spay/neuter, microchips, and pet licenses to help rescind citations and assist clients with accessing pet-friendly housing. In 2020, we have expanded to food deliveries for pet owner negatively impacted by COVID or associated economic impacts. We have delivered more than 2 tons of food already! Additionally, we continued to work with our Denver Human Services partners to provide temporary housing for pet owners displaced by evictions or other housing struggles.