Just four months after opening its doors amidst a pandemic, the Cape Coral Animal Shelter is expected to find their 400th animal a new forever home this week.

As of mid-week, the shelter has had 376 adoptions since opening March 19, including 160 cats and 216 dogs.

“Despite everything, we made the best out of the situation and started doing appointments by adoption and we’re going to hit our 400th adoption this week,” said Cape Coral Animal Shelter Executive Director Liz McCauley. “I never thought we’d get here this fast. It’s better than I could have imagined.”

Four days after the shelter launched, it was forced to close to the public due to COVID-19. The team then got creative by scheduling adoption appointments, ensuring social distancing in the shelter and keeping the facility extremely sanitary.

The support from the community has been immense, McCauley said — whether that be through volunteerism, donations or adoptions. She said the shelter is now finding its “groove” when it comes to operating under the current circumstances.

“The appointment model for us works perfectly because of our size and limited staff,” McCauley said. “The fact that you make an appointment to come in to see the dogs, it gives us more time to meet with people, it gives us more time to make sure that it’s a right fit for their family and it’s a model we’re going to continue. Even after the pandemic is behind us we’re going to continue that model for dog adoptions.”

The Cape Coral Animal Shelter also helps ease the burden of local shelters and even those in surrounding counties.

“We’ve had all kinds of great dogs,” McCauley said. “And we’ve helped six or seven different municipal shelters and rescues throughout the community. A lot of our animals, besides owner surrenders, are coming from Hendry County, DeSoto County, Collier County, of course Lee County we help. We’ve helped out lots of different underserved municipal shelters.”

The shelter also just received two grants given to support animal welfare organizations that incurred unexpected operating expenses due to COVID-19.

The grants came via Bailey and Friends — a new trust component of the Golisano Foundation — and the Humane Society of the United States.

McCauley said to support the lifesaving work of the shelter and to provide a much-needed service to the community, the shelter will open a low-cost, state-of- the art veterinary clinic, hopefully within the next month.

“We believe, now more than ever, people are going to need a low-cost alternative to keep their pets healthy, happy, and out of the shelter. Our services will include vaccines, spay/neuter surgery, illnesses and wellness visits, and the sale of flea and heartworm preventative and prescription food” McCauley said. “The grants will be used to purchase the remaining supplies and equipment needed to open the clinic, which could not have come at a better time. We are extremely grateful for their support of our mission”

The grant from Bailey and Friends is in the amount of $5,000 and the shelter received $6,500 from the humane society.

For more information, to make a donation and to view animals up for adoption and to schedule an appointment, visit CapeCoralAnimalShelter.com .

–Connect with this reporter on Twitter: @haddad_cj