Pandemic wave of pet abandonments impacting local shelter

By Al Beeber - Lethbridge Herald on November 23, 2022.

LETHBRIDGE HERALDabeeber@lethbridgeherald.com

The Lethbridge Animal Shelter is facing an overcrowding situation thanks to pets not being claimed by their owners.

Because of the situation, the shelter has immediately suspended pet surrender intakes.

It is instead introducing a mandated intake system, which the shelter says has been adopted by animal care facilities across North America. The system means prioritizing intake which reduces the spread of illness, provides a less-stressful environment for pets and lets staff spend more time on provision care and enrichment activities for animals.

Earlier this summer, it was thought the peak had been reached with unwanted animals due to pandemic restrictions lifting. During the pandemic, Skylar Plourde director of services with Community Animal Services said Tuesday, interest in pet ownership rose substantially with few animals being available for adoption.

This caught the attention of some who saw an opportunity to make money off the situation and began backyard breeding operations, which is not something regularly seen in this area, Plourde said.

“Because of the program that we run, which is an animal control program, our population within the shelter fluctuates a lot. A stray animal comes in, it could be claimed that afternoon,” said Plourde.

“But there’s such a huge increase in the overpopulation of pets right now that nobody could have anticipated we’d have this many pets coming into the shelter and we just can’t keep up with the time it takes to do adoption.

“People aren’t coming in and claiming their animals so they sit here which has really contributed to the position we’re in and some of the steps we’ve had to take to hopefully alleviate that,” added Plourde.

In late spring and early summer, animal control staff were perhaps wrong in thinking the peak of shelter capacity had been reached, he added.

“At this point, we might not even be at the peak now. There’s no way to prove it but from what we can see may have happened is during the beginning and the peak of COVID restrictions and how most people were staying home and kids weren’t going to school, there was obviously a huge interest in bringing pets into the home.

“I think a small portion of the population saw that as a money-making opportunity” and started breeding dogs in the backyard, basement or garage, selling them for what they asked, said Plourde.

“All the animals had been taken out of shelters and rescues and gone into homes so I think there were people starting to look at that as a business opportunity” but when restrictions lifted and people went back to school or work, there was less interest in having pets in homes.

As a result, there was an “overstock of bred dogs and nowhere for them to really go so they’re being abandoned, surrendered, or maybe placed into homes they shouldn’t be,” said Plourde.

“The majority of animals in here are around a year old” which correlates with the timeframe when restrictions were relaxed, he added.

The managed intake system operates in different ways in different facilities. Some have started a scheduled intake which doesn’t work in Lethbridge, said Plourde because the city shelter – which doesn’t euthanize animals – can’t fill a kennel until its occupant has been adopted.

Plourde says cats are 10 times more likely to return home if they’re simply left where they’re found.

“Not every cat outside is necessarily in distress,” he said. “Not every cat needs to be turned into the shelter” unless they are in distress, he added.

City residents missing a pet are being asked to contact the shelter to see if it has been found and taken there.

“Both stray cats and dogs are not being claimed in the allocated hold time from admittance, meaning the shelter needs to prepare them for adoption by getting them spayed/neutered, up-to-date on vaccines and other heath matters in order. This takes time and is more difficult to complete when there is overcrowding and other animals requiring urgent care,” says a release from the City.

If people find a stray in their neighbourhood – and it’s not a risk to the public – they’re urged to make efforts to locate the owner before turning it over to the shelter.

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