This week’s Hometown Hero, presented by Hendrick Southpoint, is Cooper Hatch from Orange County Animal Services!

Cooper is the program coordinator for Orange County Animal Services and regularly appears on “Adopt-A-Pet” during the Ron Stutts Show on Tuesday mornings. She works with animal services to ensure that dogs and cats find a new family.

Many of the cats and dogs that appear on “Adopt-A-Pet” find forever homes. In fact, the cat that appeared on last week’s show was adopted shortly after returning to the shelter from her trip to the radio station!

In addition, Cooper has been working with the 57 dogs seized in a 2019 animal cruelty case in Orange County. She said that Orange County Animal Service has received thousands of applications from people looking to adopt the dogs, some of which arrived at the shelter pregnant.

“Three [dogs] came in pregnant,” Cooper said, “so we’ve had to kind of deal with those and we’ve got the little puppies that will be in the last few batches.”

Since putting the seized dogs up for adoption, the department said they have received almost 19,000 applications for the rescued bulldogs and other breeds. So far, 20 of the dogs have been adopted out.

More details about this special adoption process are available here.

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