Adoption rates at the Arizona Animal Welfare League are soaring during COVID-19 with the help of community members, but the shelter is still struggling to stay afloat.
The AAWL, a non-profit, no-kill shelter, has seen a significant influx of applications for fostering animals and requests to adopt pets since the coronavirus outbreak in March.
Michael Morefield, the Director of Communications and Marketing of the organization, said that pandemic has affected the league in many different ways, but there have also been some “silver linings.”
Morefield said the shelter received triple the amount of foster applications from March to October than the previous year.
Due to health concerns, the campus moved all adoption consultations to an entirely new appointment-based program to limit the amount of people on site for the safety of the public and staff.
“Adoptions have been affected by that, but we are still seeing really great adoption numbers,” Morefield said. “When we were in the throes of the pandemic, right at the beginning, we were doing about 70% of the adoptions that we were doing when we weren’t in a pandemic, which is a big deal because our second adoption location was closed for almost two months.”
Now, Morefield says the AAWL is back to the normal monthly adoption numbers, on-track to meet their annual 4,500 adoptions, while still keeping the appointment program in place.
As of Oct. 28, the organization had already adopted out a total of 334 animals. 212 of those adoptions were from the Phoenix location alone, the main shelter.
Hunter McCormick, a Phoenix resident and student at Arizona State University, said that these mandatory appointments made it really hard to adopt a pet because by the time she got to the shelter, the animal was usually already gone.
McCormick, now owner of 4-year old chihuahua named Momo, said she wanted to get a dog during the pandemic because she knew she would have to stay home instead of living on campus.
“I asked my parents if I could get a dog as a friendly companion that would give me something to do around the house because it can be quite boring in isolation,” McCormick said. “If I feel stressed, I go and play with him or cuddle with him. He’s not a therapy dog, but it’s almost like during this time, because of COVID, he’s become one.”
Courtney Smith, Associate Director of the downtown Sun Devil Fitness and Wellness Complex at ASU, said her decision to adopt a dog was not as spontaneous because she and her husband had been thinking about adopting for over a year.
Smith said she wasn’t sure if the timing was right before the pandemic, but after she and her husband began working from home and found a dog that was within their budget, she saw “all the right signs.”
Smith adopted 7-month old husky Tua in May and said he was the missing piece in her life after living dog-free for 12 years.
“He has brought us a lot of joy and I think some balance too,” Smith said. “I tend to be a little bit of a workaholic sometimes, and you can’t do that with a dog who is depending on you.”
Despite the AAWL and community members’ hard work to give animals a second chance, the shelter is not receiving the funds they need to operate to the fullest capacity. Morefield said it is difficult to juggle all of the tasks that need to be done in order to take proper care of the animals, while also keeping social distancing in-check.
The organization currently has 450 active volunteers who have to be rotated on a set schedule. Morefield said the league also provides services including spaying and neutering, behavioral training, vaccinations, microchipping, flea and tick treatment, deworming treatment, and at times, certain animals in particularly bad shape could need $2,000-3,000 surgeries.
According to the 2018 audit report, the Phoenix shelter alone had expenses that amounted to almost $2.9 million, making it nearly impossible to make any profit from adoption fees, Morefield said.
Because the AAWL is a non-profit organization, it receives the majority of its income from private donations, which have fallen drastically due to the economic and financial hits during COVID-19.
The organization holds the Walk to Save Animals event every year to fundraise for their programs and bring awareness to the community about the need to adopt stray dogs and cats.
Usually the fundraiser brings in about $150,000, but this year’s virtual walk set the goal for $100,000. After the event on Nov. 7, the AAWL was able to raise $104.4 thousand.
“We are very blessed to have the shelter we have, we are very blessed to have the community support that we have,” Morefield said. “But it’s a tough time, it’s a scary time.”
Contact the reporter at mphammel@asu.edu.
"The Flexible Journalist" -
Hammel is a fourth-year student studying broadcast journalism at Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite college in an accelerated bachelor's-master's program. She is currently the Executive Editor for The Downtown Devil - a publication that covers hyperlocal news in the downtown Phoenix area - and is always looking for ways to improve her reporting and news writing skills—behind the camera and in front of it.
Hammel is also a certified yoga instructor at the Sun Devil Fitness Complex; she is flexible physically as well as in a way that allows her to be able to cover any news story that will educate the public, encourage civil discourse and impact communities.
