Animal shelters are desperate for adopters and foster homes as year ends

Local animal shelters are chock-full of critters thanks to housing insecurity, back-to-office mandates, and the crush of the holiday season. And they’re looking for people to adopt or foster a few.

“It’s been a little bit of everything this year,” said Sarah Barnett, executive director of the city’s Animal Care and Control Team. “We got through this summer, thinking it would be better in November when the numbers go down, and they didn’t go down. Almost every day when we drive up to work, you see someone surrendering an animal.”

Barnett said 21 dogs were surrendered in one day in December.

“Our dog population, in a perfect world, would not go above 85,” she said Thursday. “ Right now, we’re at 106.”

When someone tries to surrender a dog or cat, intake workers try to see if that person could keep the animal with some assistance, such as additional pet food. If not, they try to understand why the person has to let it go. Barnett said eviction, homelessness, and landlord issues are major reasons.

“It’s an ongoing issue,” she said.

Liberty Britton, communications manager for the Philadelphia Animal Welfare Society, said the holidays are a difficult time for adoptions and fostering.

“People are traveling and often preoccupied,” she said. “On our end, the intake doesn’t slow down, though. We’re just waiting for people to be able to open their homes again.”

Many shelters are on the phone with each other all week, playing a shell game with their kennels to keep the pets alive. A dog in Philly might spend a month in Camden County and vice versa.

“I help out Philly ACCT as much as I can,” said Kathy Leary, executive director at the Animal Adoption Center in Lindenwold. “Since June, I’ve probably taken 250 animals from them.”

Leary said this has been the worst she’s ever seen with dog surrenders.

‘It’s been very bad,” she said. “We’re seeing a lot of young dogs, maybe pets that were born during COVID because of a lack of vet care or spaying and neutering going down. People are going back to the office, too.”

Some shelters, such as the Ruth Steinert Memorial SPCA in Schuylkill County, just had some bad luck. On Tuesday morning, employees found a burst frozen pipe, which forced them to get bottled water for the dozens of cats.

In Philly, Barnett said ACCT is required to accept any stray or surrender from within city limits. Many get put on euthanization lists, and employees work magic to prevent them from staying until that date. Barnett said lately, that means lots of dogs are in crates in offices. Two dogs were scheduled to be euthanized Thursday, she said, but employees were scrambling.

“If just 1% of Philadelphia adopted a dog from us,” she said, “we’d be empty.”