BY: Samantha Bartlett

As the COVID-19 pandemic began, animal shelters across the country braced for the worst. Many shelters suffering funding cuts for staffing and operations and spay/neuter programs foresaw an overwhelming influx of homeless animals. 

What happened in the first two months of the pandemic was surprising. Record numbers of people stepped up to foster or adopt animals to the point that many shelters found themselves with only a handful of adoptable animals. People under quarantine found themselves with a lot of time and very little structure. Caring for a pet provides companionship, emotional support and structure to the day. 

While shelter workers are both grateful and surprised by the turn of events, they worry about the coming months. As the COVID-19 pandemic has raced through the United States, shelters are seeing an increase in pets coming from homes where their owners have been infected by the virus and been hospitalize or died. The shelters expect this trend to continue but also worry about the possibility of adopted or fostered pets being returned in waves as adopters face more financial constraints or determine a pet is too much responsibility once they return to work. There is also a concern as kitten season is approaching and spay and neuter programs are either disbanded or functioning at reduced capacity due to funding cuts. 

Shelters are now focusing on keeping pets in homes by providing pet feeding programs and raising money to help with the financial burden of homing a pet. Shelters are also encouraging people to keep found animals or reach out to their own social networks to find homes for those animals rather than taking them to the shelter. The shelter tries to find family members or friends of owners that have been stricken by COVID-19 to foster or adopt those pets. The ultimate fear is an epidemic of homeless animals that will force shelters to increase euthanasia rates due to lack of space.