MANKATO, Minn. — Dogs rescued from hurricane-hit areas of Texas and Florida have been finding new homes in several parts of the country in recent weeks.

In Minnesota, a partnership between a local humane society and some overwhelmed animal shelters in the south in the aftermath of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma brought at least 60 dogs to the Mankato area.

Their arrivals sparked a foster frenzy at a local shelter as staff tried to pair the pooches with good homes. The Blue Earth Nicollet County Human Society (BENCHS) held a mixer of sorts once the dogs came, a chance for the animals and prospective adopters to size each other up.

“The amount of people that were in the building was equivalent to our grand opening,” said Terri Hanson, a dog adoption specialist with the humane society, of the response. “It was the norm for two weeks. We had a steady stream of people who wanted to help. I had to turn people away because there weren’t enough dogs.”

Megan Hix of Le Sueur was among the crowd. She and her fiance, Justin Ashley, had long wanted a dog but were waiting for the right one to come along.

In came a pup they’ve since named Jackson, a pitbull/lab mix of about a year. He was eager to meet everyone in the room, yet kept coming back to Hix and Ashley.

“He kept coming to us, which was kind of our sign,” Hix told the Mankato, Minnesota Free Press. “And then he slowly tugged on the heartstrings and now he’s our little man.”

Because BENCHS couldn’t know as much about the dogs’ history and demeanor as they usually would, they allowed families to have a two-week foster period. Even if the families opted against adopting, they could still provide helpful information about the dogs that the shelter could give to future foster families.

It didn’t even take that long for Hix to know she wanted to adopt Jackson. She described him as a “snugglebug” who loves people.

“He’s an all around goofball loving to curl up on the couch with you, but also likes his squeaky toys,” she added.

Jackson came from Putnam County, Florida, between Jacksonville and Orlando. He was already in a shelter there when Hurricane Irma hit. Finding a home for him would’ve been difficult as the area recovered from the storm.

The same can be said of the Corpus Christi area of Texas, where two other recently adopted dogs came from. Shrimp, a dachshund, and Honey, a lab mix, were nearing 13 years of age when they came to BENCHS from Texas.

Hanson said it’s usually hard to find fosters or adopters for aging dogs, but the banded pair were in luck. Nicole Briley of nearby Madison Lake was looking for companions for her own lab, Angel, and couldn’t bear to see the banded dogs stay in the shelter for long.

“When all this happened I went down there just to see what there was and they’d just gotten the two in,” she said. “I was like, ‘I’ll take them as a foster just to get them out.'”

She quickly grew attached to the cuddly, mellow, new additions. She joked that Shrimp, large for a weiner dog, looks more “like a bratwurst.”

Briley finalized the dogs’ adoption last week, celebrating it by treating the hounds to a doggie spa day Friday.

“These are my kids,” Briley said of her dogs. “I don’t have children, so these are my four-legged kids.”

Arola writes for the Mankato, Minnesota Free Press.