Although the stay-at-home order is active in Arizona and people are staying home, the number of animals going into animal shelters is the same as before the COVID-19 pandemic.
For the Arizona Humane Society, adoptions were originally put on hold due to COVID-19 concerns; however, the shelter could no longer sustain the number of animals coming into the shelter with no way to get them into forever homes.
Kelsey Dickerson, a spokesperson for the Arizona Humane Society, said the decision to continue adoptions with social distancing guidelines meant life or death for some of the shelter’s residents.
“As you can imagine, we take in almost 18,000 sick, injured pets every single year so our shelter was filling up really fast,” Dickerson said. “Kitten season is here, as well as the rise of parvo and distemper, and with the heat our emergency medical technicians and cruelty investigators they’re coming into, they’re in an extremely busy season right now. So the Arizona Humane Society was filling up really quick.”
While people have been losing their jobs and some are unable to care for their pets, people are reaching out to the Pet Resource Center (PRC) at the Humane Society.
“Our PRC is a group of professionals who are trained to give pet owners resources, whether it could be anything from letting them know where there’s free food for a month,” Dickerson said. “That way, they’re still able to keep their pets in homes. They can get low-cost services, setting them up with an appointment to surrender their animal if it gets to that point, but their job really is to try to give resources to try to keep pets in homes and out of shelters.”
The shelter will continue functioning with online classes and telecounseling for those who need advice on animal care. For more information, go to azhumane.org.
For The Arizona Pet Project, an organization focused on aiding pet owners through crises, adjusting around COVID-19 has been difficult. Executive Director Leanna Taylor said that with some animal shelters closed, a lot of families have had the rug pulled out from under their feet with nowhere to turn to for help.
“They’ve lost jobs, some of them are losing homes,” Taylor said. “And so in the event their pets get sick or injured, they have no resources to help with things like veterinary care. And also, individuals who have been displaced from homes or who need to access safe shelter, like those domestic violence shelters and homeless shelters, are unable to bring their pets with them.”
Taylor said that The Arizona Pet Project has seen a major increase in people looking for assistance with veterinary care, pet food and temporary boarding.
“If people can’t feed their families, chances are they can’t feed their pets either, and most government assistance programs do not allow food stamps and such to go toward pets,” Taylor said. “We’re seeing families in our community who are literally making the choices between feeding themselves and feeding their animals.”
Taylor said because of the pandemic, more people are looking to help animal shelters, and she feels that should be celebrated. She also said that people have been adopting and fostering more now that they are at home more.
The Arizona Pet Project has about twice as many animals as they normally do in temporary boarding, and the organization needs an additional $60,000 in order to help 250 more families than the 5,000 normally served each year. For more information on how you can help The Arizona Pet Project, go to azpetproject.org.
Taylor said that although she appreciates how the community is helping animals during this time, there is far more work to be done.
“The reality is there are pets that are suffering in our community, that because they’re not in the shelter, we can’t see them. And so we need to find ways to get resources and support to those pets, and quickly,” she said.
Contact the reporter at ktmoss1@asu.edu.
