NATCHEZ — With spring in full swing and the flowers blooming, so is the number of litters of puppies and kittens in the Miss-Lou.

The Natchez-Adams County Humane Society shelter is extending its hours and is hoping the longer hours will help the approximately 210 animals at the shelter find permanent homes.

“We are just inundated with puppies and kittens right now,” humane society board member Linda Kennon said. “We are having to turn them away, because we just don’t have anywhere to keep them.”

Kennon said the shelter normally houses approximately 25 cats and 75-80 dogs at any given time, but she said the shelter currently has 60 cats and about 150 dogs.

“We had to euthanize 40 animals (Tuesday) night,” Kennon said. “I know that’s not something people like to hear, and it’s certainly not something we want to do, but we have no choice.”

The animals being dropped off at the shelter are not just coming from Natchez and Adams County, the two entities that provide some monthly funding for the shelter, Kennon said.

People are dropping off dogs and cats, Kennon said, from surrounding counties and in Concordia Parish as far away as Jonesville and Sicily Island.

Kennon said she wishes people would be more understanding of the overcrowding at the shelter.

“People get very aggravated when we can’t take the animals, but we just don’t have anywhere to put them,” she said.

Kennon said the proposed new shelter, which is planned to be located behind the current shelter, will not solve the overcrowding problem even though it will be a larger shelter.

“The problem is people not spaying and neutering their pets like they should,” Kennon said.

Kennon and other humane society board members will be traveling to Las Vegas next week to the Humane Society of the United States Animal Care Expo to meet with suppliers and animal shelter architects to look at supplies and designs for the new shelter. Kennon said the trip is not being funded by the humane society or any funds for the new shelter.

The current shelter, located at 392 Liberty Road, is open from 2 p.m. until 5 p.m. Tuesday-Friday and 11 a.m. until 2 p.m. on Saturday, which is an adoption-only day. The shelter is closed on Monday.

The humane society is hosting an adoption day at Home Hardware from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday in hopes of finding some of the shelter’s many puppies and kittens new homes.

The adoption fee is $45 for dogs and $35 for cats.

The humane society will schedule appointments for pets that have not been spayed or neutered and inform new owners when they can pick up their pets.

Home Hardware is located at 187 Seargent Prentiss Drive.

For more information about NACHS or to view some of the pets available for adoption, visit natchezpetadoptions.org or call 601-442-4001.