An animal shelter in Limestone County is begging for help as they’ve seen an influx of both cats and dogs.

In fact, it's the only animal shelter in the county, so they’re asking the community to step up and foster or adopt, so that the animals don’t have to be put down.

WAAY 31 spoke with folks at the animal shelter and learned a little more about what they've been dealing with the past week.

After posting about a full house on Facebook last week, the Athens-Limestone County Animal Shelter received a lot of positive feedback and had at least a dozen dogs taken out of their shelter just this past weekend, but they say the over-crowding problem isn’t exactly fixed.

"If we run out of space, euthanization is our only resort," said the director of the Athens-Limestone County Animal Shelter, Priscilla Blenkinsopp.

That’s the message the animal shelter posted about on Facebook last week, begging the community to help by fostering animals—as the shelter was becoming over-crowded.

“We had 80 or 85 at that time, and now, we’re down to around 60.”

Sixty is exactly the amount of dogs the shelter was built to hold, so, technically, they’re still at full-capacity, but since their post on Facebook, they’ve had a lot of people offer to foster.

However, while the number of dogs is down, the number of cats is on the rise.

“Our cats—they’re up. We’ve got a lot of cats in today, so we need help with cats now," Blenkinsopp said. "If you’re looking at adopting a cat or a kitten, please come see us.”

WAAY 31 asked Blenkinsopp if expanding the shelter or adding a new shelter would help—as this is the only shelter in Limestone County—but she told us, as long as they can encourage the community to spay and neuter their pets, she believes numbers at the shelter should be manageable. But if the community doesn’t listen, there could be some problems.

"One litter is too many for us," Blenkinsopp said.

So, the shelter is doing all they can to persuade people that adding a four-legged member to the family is a good idea.

“They’re your best friend," Blenkinsopp said. "They love you unconditionally.”

This isn’t the first animal shelter in our area to become over-crowded. Just a couple of weeks ago, Huntsville Animal Services was also asking for help so they wouldn’t have to euthanize their animals.