UPPER MARLBORO, Md. — The Prince George’s County animal shelter is once again at critical capacity. Local groups are racing against the clock, hoping to find placements for the shelter’s most at-risk dogs — many of whom need placement as early as Tuesday, July 22.
Anyone interested can view adoptable dogs here.
Shelter volunteer Amy Pergosky said she hasn’t seen numbers this high in her 20 years of volunteering. The shelter posts an updated number regularly and nearly always reports being at “critical” capacity on its website. They’re urgently seeking fosters, adopters, and rescues outside of the county, especially ones who can take on bully breeds.
Beth Bauer runs the Friends of PG County Animal Shelter Facebook page and tirelessly posts about dogs at risk for euthanasia. She says the “majority” of dogs in the shelter are bully mixes and all come from within the county. Bauer has a full-time job and says she and her fellow page admin have built a grassroots effort around the dogs, taking cues from groups who run social media pages advocating for dogs in overpopulated areas. The Friends of PG County Animal Shelter page is filled with big heads, sweet eyes, and last-chance pleas to save the lives of dogs who pose for a cute photo, unaware that their time is running out.
At the shelter’s current capacity, most bully-type mixes have limited time in the shelter before being placed on the euthanasia list. Many dogs Bauer’s page shows have as little as a week between coming to the shelter and being scheduled for euthanasia.
“Many think overpopulation is a crisis in Texas, California, and the South — they don’t realize it is in our own backyard in the DMV,” Bauer said.
Pergosky added that unaltered dogs and backyard breeding contribute to the problem. People want puppies and then wind up surrendering the dog or abandoning it when it gets older.
“I know a lot of people get upset seeing these urgent lists,” Pergosky said. “But in the past, we didn’t even know. We’d just go into the shelter and see our favorite dog’s kennel empty. This way, they have a chance.”
The Prince George’s County shelter faces a few problems in getting dogs into homes. One, they are the only county-run shelter in a county with nearly a million people living in it. Compare that to Calvert County, which has 95,000 people and whose animal shelter also often reports being at capacity.
Second, the county has breed-specific legislation in place that targets pit bull-type dogs and mixes. This means that any dogs that fall into these categories cannot be adopted by people within the county, and anyone found to own a pit bull-type dog will face a fine of up to $1,000 and six months’ imprisonment. The ban was put into place in 1996 and upheld by the city council in 2024, though it faces issues with enforceability due to an ongoing lawsuit.
While the public is quick to condemn the shelter, there are simply not enough fosters or adopters available for the dogs — though Pergosky says that could be remedied if qualified adopters within Prince George’s County were allowed to adopt bully breeds. Rescues like the Humane Society of Calvert County pull dogs from Prince George’s County as much as possible, but when so many dogs are ineligible to be adopted from Maryland’s second-most populous county, the shelter and its desperate dogs are put in an impossible situation.
Despite the BSL, the Prince George’s shelter gets pit bull-types daily, and many are strays without microchips. As a result, a bully breed’s only chance at a life outside of the shelter walls is to get picked up by someone outside the county — and quickly.
Adopting a dog is a serious decision for any family, and experts urge people to consider the right type of dog for their family before adopting. Be honest about who you are and what you can do — bully breeds are strong and may not be the right fit for inexperienced pet owners. But if you are looking for a bully breed in Charles, St. Mary’s, and Calvert counties, Prince George’s County shelter has plenty of options. All homeless dogs deserve a fresh start, no matter what county they live in — so it’s up to the adopter what kind of story they want to tell when someone asks about when and how they got their dog.
“The deck is stacked against these dogs,” Pergosky said. She says that the average age of the dogs on the urgent list is 2.5.
Outside of fostering or adopting, people in the southern counties can volunteer with the rescues in their counties that regularly pull from the PG shelter, allowing them to help more dogs. If you follow Bauer’s page or others like it, you can make sure to pledge funds to help that dog. Often, rescues will pull a dog based on the pledges, once they know they’ll have the means to do so.
Finally, Bauer encourages people to speak up about laws that affect dogs. Not just BSL — advocating for spay, neuter, and microchip laws can make an impact, too.
“Spay and neuter is really overlooked but is also really important,” Pergosky said. “We know it’s not fun and can be expensive, but there are low-cost options.”
She added that it matters when people outside of the county bring attention to the shelter. She estimates that on any given day, anywhere from 30% to 50% of the dogs are unadoptable to people in the county because they’re classified as bully breeds. While getting adopters from out of the county through the shelter door matters, the issue will continue if laws don’t change.
And if Bauer’s page has pulled your heartstrings from the moment you first saw it, the shelter is always seeking more volunteers.
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