SHELTERS OVERFLOW AS PET ADOPTION BOOM OF PANDEMIC SLOWS DOWN

U.S. animal shelters will start 2024 the most overcrowded they have been in years, according to a broad survey of animal rescue facilities, a symptom of persistent economic concern as the country’s pandemic petadoption boom finally cools.

There are roughly a quarter-million more pets in animal shelters this holiday season than there were in the same period in 2022, according to Shelter Animals Count, a nonprofit that tracks unhoused pet populations.

That figure would be higher, said Stephanie Filer, the group’s executive director, if shelters were not already overcrowded and had more space to keep animals.

Pet adoptions skyrocketed during the coronavirus pandemic. Nearly 1 in 5 households adopted a pet during the pandemic, according to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Even President Biden adopted a dog, Commander, and a cat, Willow.

At the pandemic’s height, 70 percent of U.S. households owned pets, according to the American Pet Products Association trade group (APPA), and 54 percent of all households owned dogs.

But as the economy turned sour and inflation rose to historic heights, consumers’ buying power dwindled and the pace of adoptions slowed. That, in turn, put a strain on rescue facilities, which have limited space to house unwanted cats and dogs, Filer said. Now about two-thirds of households own a pet, according to APPA, and half own dogs.

Pet populations, though, have continued to grow; owners skipped nearly 3 million spay or neuter surgeries in 2020 and 2021, according to research conducted by the University of Florida’s College of Veterinary Medicine.

The pandemic, and the thousands of dollars in stimulus funding that individuals and households received, made pet ownership affordable for scores of families. The end of the pandemic, and the federal government’s fiscal tightening, threatened for a time to make pet ownership a stark economic divider between the middle and working classes.

All that added up to one result: Owning a pet got more expensive. And a lot more pets are stuck in shelters because of it.

Those crises could be starting to ease, though. Prospective pet owners generally decide whether to adopt an animal based on their economic outlook, experts say, and financial forecasts are brightening.

WILFREDO LEE AP FILE There are now roughly a quarter-million more pets in shelters than during the same period in 2022.