SALLIE WALKUP: One thing the pandemic has done is give furry friends their forever homes. But what happens to those pets when their humans can no longer stay at home? Our NCC’s Cyera Williams can answer that question. Cyera, what happens to families that can no longer stay home with their pet?
CYERA: Hey Sallie, what happens with those animals is that they’re forced to go through that adoption process again.
CYERA: Last year, dog shelters and rescue facilities experience an all-time high. But since jobs are returning to in-person and businesses are opening, shelters are getting dogs back instead of finding them a home.
LISA GOLTREY: During the pandemic people got puppies and then they surrendered them because they went back to work or because they didn’t have time so a lot of the fosters or a lot of the charities that work with pets and that, were getting inundated with a lot of surrenders.
CYERA: Dogs are now being surrendered at a faster rate than last year. They’re coming out of homes that either no longer have time for their pet or have been confiscated from animal abused homes, which is different than what shelters experienced in the beginning of the pandemic.
LIZ PERSONS: We were getting tons and tons of applications. We were having trouble keeping up with them, there were so many. We could get 30 applications a day for just one dog.
CYERA: Now dogs are falling under something called the “Pandemic Return”
KIMBERLY SMITH-FORD: We’ve Had a handful, probably about 4 or 5. Not as many as other shelters have seen but we’re also on a smaller scale compared to the other shelters out there.
CYERA: The abrupt change also affects the mental health of the dogs.
FORD: A lot of dogs are suffering from separation anxiety because they are not used to being left home alone.
CYERA: AND FOR FAMILIES WHO TAKE IN THAT SURRENDERED DOG, THEY SAY
GOLTREY: It feels good to give back and especially help the ones that have been in bad situations.
CYERA: The Second Chance Adoption Canine Shelter will host an event every Saturday to increase applicants and to get dogs into homes. More information on that can be found on our website. In Syracuse, Cyera Williams, NCC News.
SYRACUSE, N.Y. (NCC News) — Since the economy is opening up and people are returning to work in person, animal shelters say they are experiencing a decrease in applications. Dog rescues and shelters are also experiencing more surrenders of animals this year than they had last year.
Liz Persons, vice-president of Seventh Heaven Rescue said last year they were successful in getting dogs into their forever homes. At the beginning of the pandemic, Persons said Seventh Heaven Rescue received 10 to 15 applications a day. Now they only receive one or two a day.
“When the pandemic hit, all of a sudden we were getting tons and tons of applications, we were having trouble keeping up with them,” said Persons.
Persons also said they experienced people trying to surrender their pets to their organization. They were not able to take in additional animals because Seventh Heaven Rescue operates out of foster homes and not shelters.
“We do get contact on a regular basis from people needing to surrender their dogs,” said Persons. “We usually hear people say ‘I just don’t have time to give then what they need.’”
Kimberly Smith-Ford, director at Second Chance Canine Adoption Shelter said she is experiencing a decrease in applications as well. Because Second Chance Canine Adoption Shelter is a shelter, Ford says she also sees an increase in surrenders. Shelters are calling this the “pandemic return. “
“It impacts all shelters because not only is everyone seeing returns but the number of dogs coming hasn’t slowed down either,” said Ford.
Second Chance Canine Adoption takes in dogs that have been picked up by CNY SPCA and cares for them until they get adopted. Since adoption rates are down, the organization had to stop taking in large numbers of dogs and focus on getting the ones in the shelter rehoused.
“It’s frustrating but it’s also sad for the dog because that’s one more transition that the dog has to go through,” said Ford. “We’re in it for the animals’ well being and that’s when it gets frustrating because they go from a shelter to a home to a shelter and they’re confused and shut down even more.”
