While most people looked for a properly waxed date on Feb. 14, others found a valentine with a little extra fur.
More than 20 people found cuddly companions on Saturday at the Alachua County Animal Services "Come Fall in Love" event.
The organization offered reduced adoption fees, including vaccinations and spaying or neutering. People paid less than half the shelter's regular rates for dogs and cats.
Visitors had free coffee, spaghetti and donuts as they toured the pink-and-red-ballooned shelter and met eligible dogs, cats, rabbits and hamsters.
Trey Regar, 4, may have been a little too young for a Valentine's Day date, but he found the perfect companion - one that doesn't mind getting dirty and never gets tired of chasing a ball - when he met Ranger, a young pit bull mix.
"He needed a boy's dog, and this is a boy's dog," Trey's father, Ron Regar, said of Ranger.
"I didn't want to get him a little sissy dog."
According to Regar, the family searched for the perfect dog since Trey's Rottweiler died several weeks before, and they thought Ranger was the perfect match.
"They just clicked the second they met over at the cage," he said. "Trey said, 'This is the one I want.'"
ACAS spokeswoman Hilary Hynes said the connection between Trey and Ranger was exactly what the events are designed to create.
"We watch for the moment when [the adopter] is holding the animal in their arms and you can just tell it's right," she said.
"We're in the business of permanent happy endings," she said.
Hynes said that the shelter usually has about 16 adoptions per week, but events like the one Saturday often result in the placement of about seven times that many.
Saturday was no exception.
"When we opened at 9:30, we had people running to the front door," she said.
Hynes attributed the event's success to the low adoption fees and to the good spirits people tend to be in on holidays.
"It's Valentine's Day," she said. "It's a reason to come fall in love."
