PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — It’s crisis mode for the staff and volunteers at the Western PA Humane Society.

Their North Side shelter is overrun, spilling into the hallways with not stray animals, but owner-surrendered pets.

“A 14 percent increase in cats and over 20 percent increase in dogs – owner-surrendered dogs and over 300 percent in rabbits just in the month of September,” Gretchen Fieser said.

Because the humane society is one of the few places with an “open door” policy in the tri-state area and with Washington and Butler counties full and not accepting animals, there’s a huge increase in their intake of animals.

Making matters worse, their adoption rate is extremely low. Today alone they took in 45 animals but only adopted 16 of them.

“I think the economy plays a large part of this,” Fieser said. “Certainly the season the end of summer the beginning of fall people are still settling into their routines as far as not having adoptions.”

The humane society needs Pittsburgh’s help getting these animals adopted. There’s also many other ways to help like their foster program.

“That’s just if somebody would foster a child. It’s not a permanent arrangement but an arrangement where you take them for a certain amount of time,” Fieser explained. “Whether it’s a few days or a few weeks depending on the situation and we work with each person individually on that.”

The Western PA Humane Society also has adoption specials right now. No fee for cats six months and older and specials on dog adoptions.

For more information on the animals, the foster program, and adoption specials, visit wpahumane.com.