US Shelters Overflowing! Fosters & Adopters Needed!!

It is estimated that shelters are housing around 100,000 more dogs and cats than at this time last year. There are several reasons for this, including staff shortages due to Covid-19, inflation, which is making it harder for families to afford adopting a pet or keeping the pets they have, and a housing crisis. The influx of pets who were lost during the 4th of July and not claimed by their families has served to exacerbate the problem (only about 2% of lost cats at shelters are reunited with their families*).

Then, of course, there is kitten season.

City, county, and private shelters are bursting at the seams. This means that healthy, adoptable animals are at high risk of being euthanized. Several shelters announced ahead of July 4th that they may have to euthanize animals - something they have not needed to do in many years. 

Even the cats and dogs who have a space in the shelter, at least for now, often suffer emotionally and psychologically because there are not enough staff and volunteers to attend to them. In some shelters, kittens are getting only 10 - 20 minutes of playtime with a caretaker. This isn’t enough to keep a kitten feeling content or loved, and that scant human interaction can lead to unsocialized behavior in kittens, which then makes their chances of adoption less, and future relinquishment back to a shelter greater.

Many shelters are trying to combat overcrowding by offering limited-time free or half-cost adoptions. Whether this will have a great enough impact on the problem for many of them remains to be seen, but if nothing else, the concurrent adoption push from such a large number of shelters is certainly raising awareness.

There are a few ways that individuals like you and I can pitch in and save some lives. ​

• Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) community cats in your neighborhood or workplace. This helps decrease cats being born outdoors and overwhelming shelters. 
• Volunteering at your local shelter or rescue group to socialize and exercise the animals will improve their quality of life and make them more adoptable
• If you have space in your home to add a pet to your family, adopting someone may save their life and will definitely free up space at the shelter so another cat or dog isn’t euthanized.
• If you can’t adopt, or if you prefer, fostering is an amazing gift to shelter animals! The best part about fostering is that once your foster finds a forever home, you can foster another animal, and on and on…saving many lives!
• Spread the word about the importance of adopting from a shelter or rescue instead of from a breeder. Tell you friends and family!

There are thousands of animals at risk in shelters who need a savior. They are all entitled to full lives.

*Hurley KF and Levy JK (2022) Rethinking the Animal Shelter's Role in Free-Roaming Cat Management. Front. Vet. Sci. 9:847081. doi: 10.3389/fvets.2022.847081