Sometimes the solutions to a problem are as plain as the whisker on a cat’s face.

King County’s animal control program has a devil of a time finding new owners for the homeless pets that end up at the animal shelter. There aren’t enough owners to go around. That’s why the agency continually pleads with the public to adopt a cat or dog – even rabbits.

In the last couple weeks, officials hit upon an idea to maximize the potential for adoptions to happen: Effective June 29, anyone wanting to adopt a new pet (or find a lost one, for that matter) can do so seven days a week, with expanded evening hours during the week and a full day of service on Sundays at the shelter in Kent, which is the one serving the Covington, Maple Valley and Black Diamond areas, among other locales. The days and hours now are Mondays 3 to 7 p.m., Tuesdays through Fridays 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., and Saturdays and Sundays 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

This is the first time the shelter has been so accessible. Officials hope that with more convenience will come an increase in the number of animals having a happy ending to their shelter experience.

One could say it took the controversy swirling around the shelter for the past year to make such a seemingly obvious move a reality. The shelter has been slammed by citizens’ groups and elected officials for sub-standard conditions. The latter have been exacerbated by the never-ending stream of animals for which there is no better place to go.

If you decide to lighten the shelter’s load by adopting a pet, I hope you’re as lucky as my family. We adopted a cat about five years ago while living in Hawaii. We plucked it as a tiny kitten from a cage at the Kauai Humane Society. My daughter named it Rainbow, as in the Rainbow State. We brought her on the airliner when we moved back to Washington. To make her trip as non-harrowing as possible, she was drugged into a coma-like stupor for roughly 12 hours by an animal tranquilizer and confined to a cramped cat carrier. Despite that reason to disown us the rest of her life if she’d chosen, she’s been a loving and loved member of the family.

For us, adopting a pet was a life-altering experience. Give it a try.

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