When the pandemic forced thousands of bored and isolated Americans to adopt dogs last year, animal rights advocates were overjoyed. When the pandemic forced thousands of bored and isolated Americans to adopt dogs last year, animal rights advocates were overjoyed. They were also concerned that, once workplaces reopened and social life resumed, those new pet owners would abandon their pets, just like children who had outgrown their teddy bears. Despite some ominous news headlines, the story so far has been far more positive.
Data from animal shelters and interviews with animal welfare experts indicate that there has been a confirmed change in pet ownership in the United States, as people bonded with their new animal friends during a particularly trying time. For many people, giving up their pets is unimaginable. Danni McCarville, 55, an artist who lives in the mountains outside Trinidad, Colorado, with her lawyer husband, said, “No, no, never — not even crossing my mind.” Buck, a Colorado mountain dog, was brought home in December. “It’s the equivalent of getting rid of a child.”
McCarville said, “He makes us laugh all day long and doesn’t even realize he’s funny.” “He brings joy, particularly at a time when having some joy in the house was fun.” Fears of mass pet abandonment have been fueled by local news reports that shelters in Florida, Virginia, and other states are taking in more dogs than at the same time last year, as coronavirus restrictions have been lifted in recent weeks. In a video that indicated U.S. shelters were struggling to handle returns from a “pandemic puppy boom,” one animal rescue worker told the British Broadcasting Corp., “It is so hard for them.”
Global animal protection organizations, on the other hand, claim that dogs adopted during the pandemic have largely remained in their new homes, and that shelters around the country have not registered alarming spikes in adopted pets being abandoned now that businesses and schools have reopened. The American Veterinary Medical Association’s spokesperson, Michael San Filippo, said, “We don’t have any evidence to prove that shelters are seeing a rise.”
“We’ll be keeping a close eye on this for the next few months,” San Filippo said. “Certainly, once we started hearing of more people taking pets home during the pandemic, we’ve been mindful of this as a possibility. But we haven’t seen any signs of a rise in surrenders as a result.” In a statement,
the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said there was no proof of “a rise in owner surrenders or stray intakes” around the country.
One explanation, according to the study, is that shelters and rescue groups “continue to have discussions with adopters to ensure they are making good matches and that pets complement their adopters’ lifestyles, even when those owners return to a post-pandemic schedule.” Although shelters have seen an uptick in pets coming in, monthly statistics from PetPoint, a database that aggregates data from more than 1,100 animal welfare organizations in the United States, show that their numbers are simply returning to pre-pandemic levels.
