San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
RESCUES BOOM IN PANDEMIC
When the going gets tough, the tough in the Bay Area go get a furry friend — if they can find one
A good pet can be hard to find. Lately, it’s been harder than ever.
In a normal week, the adoption team at Tony La Russa’s Animal Rescue Foundation (ARF) places about 50 animals in homes. But in April, when the Walnut Creek shelter placed nine puppies on its adoption website, about a thousand emails poured in. Soon after, they put up four more puppies. Another 700 people wrote in to beg for one of them.
“It’s a great problem to have,” says Elena Bicker, the shelter’s executive director.
Well — yes, for animals, not so much for the lonesome, shelteringinplace humans. Demand for pet adoptions is up 30 percent, says Bicker. At the same time, pandemicrelated issues have made it much harder for the shelter to procure rescue animals. As a result, La Russa’s foundation was able to arrange adoptions for only 114 animals (cats and dogs) between mid March and midMay. “We’ve seen a significant decrease,” Bicker says.
It’s the ultimate reversal for animal shelters. These refuges for strays and other pets who need care have often had trouble rehoming their cutiepie denizens, particularly those with behavioral or medical issues. When the shelterinplace order was issued, some officials feared their facilities would be overrun with unwanted animals. But in the upsidedown, insideout world of the novel coronavirus, the opposite is true: People are clamoring to adopt — even aged, infirm creatures — but many fewer animals are available. The pandemic and response have deeply disrupted the established processes for animal rescue.
Some shelter officials hope lack of supply means that humans are behaving better toward the animals they do have, and not just depositing them at the nearest shelter when caring for them gets tough. “Maybe people are being more responsible and taking care of their pets,” says Dr. Jennifer Scarlett, president of San Francisco’s SPCA. “And that is so beautiful.”
Scarlett says her organization did 200 adoptions from March 16 to May 12, down from 500 in the same period last year. Its waiting list has grown considerably and the time animals spend in the shelter has halved. “We have people waiting right there as soon as they can be adopted.”
Some Bay Area shelters fostered out most of their animals when the lockdown began. But there are two main reasons for the paucity of potential pets. When humans shelter in place, they tend not to spot wayward animals. Meanwhile, government restrictions have made it more difficult for shelters to receive them, says Kurt Krukenberg, president of the Humane Society Silicon Valley in Milpitas.
An example: Municipal animal control officers traditionally bring in all strays to shelters. But over the past few months, many were instructed to collect animals only if they were dangerous or needed medical help.
“There are still all these animals out there, but they’re not being brought in to us,” Krukenberg says.
Meanwhile, spay and neuter clinics, considered nonessential businesses, were forced to close down, making the wait for adoption longer because animals needed those services before adoption. (The SF SPCA, which closed its clinic and donated most of its personal protective equipment to frontline workers, is now ramping up its spaying and neutering, along with other shelters. East Bay SPCA hopes to get its clinic online in June.)
A happy upside to the shortage? Those who were not getting as much attention before the pandemic are now finding humans to care for them.
Carol Hopewell, director of the Milo Foundation in Point Richmond, says the rescue group has seen a big uptick in adoptions and fosters. One of their older dogs, a German shepherd named Jackson who has trouble walking, went to a foster home. In San Mateo, a mixed tabby cat called Almond had languished for three years at the Peninsula Humane Society & SPCA. She finally found a home in San Francisco with Miray Vavro, 32. “It’s a stressful time so I really wanted another furry being around,” says Vavro, whose previous cat had died. Six weeks in, Almond has grown friendlier and more secure — none of that scratching when Vavro leaves. “I got the perfect cat.”
Dudley, a 12yearold Chihuahua who lost all his teeth to dental issues, was adopted by a San Francisco couple who fell in love with him, says Buffy Martin Tarbox, of the same shelter. Even though Dudley’s tongue hangs out of his mouth.
The adoption process has undergone dramatic changes over the past few months. These days, most wouldbe adopters are filling out forms online, having phone conversations with counselors who make a match between humans and animals, and then maybe a Zoom or iPad meeting with the animal of their choice. Wearing masks, they drive to the shelter and pick the animals up curbside or in designated areas, sometimes using an automatic garage opener.
Adopters stay in their car and pay with a credit card before receiving the animal. “The passoff seems a little cold for us,” acknowledges Nancy McKenney, CEO of Marin Humane in Novato, which currently has 15 animals remaining in the shelter. Still, McKenney says, the process seems to be working and has a surprising upside: more individualized attention for the animals and adopters. “We’ve had much richer conversations and experiences on both ends.”
Lockdown has also reduced the pressure on animals during an adoption process, says the SF SPCA’s Scarlett. “When it started, the shelter was crowded and people didn’t know how to choose between all the animals available.” When pet seekers see 50 or 20 potential adoptees, rather than 200, they “don’t get stuck in trying to make choices, and this decreases the stress on the animals.”
To be sure, it’s not all rainbows for the animals. With kitten season in full swing, shelters are bracing for an avalanche of stray kittens, along with other animals that people might surrender as the pandemic continues and a new economic reality sets in. Though McKenney, of the Marin Humane Society, hasn’t seen that happen yet, she worries what “an increase in requests for support in our pet foodbank program” means for the future.
But a guinea pig named Snow won’t be going anywhere, says his adopter, Emily De Wolfe. She was furloughed at the start of the shutdown — she helps the mentally disabled look for employment — but her husband wasn’t. “I’ve been alone,” says DeWolfe, 36. The newlywed couple adopted Snow in April. De Wolfe returned to work a few weeks ago. Snow is staying put. “We put him on the couch and he runs around and jumps on us,” says DeWolfe. “He squeaks for his food in the morning. He’s brought so much joy to us this whole time with all the stuff going on. He’s been on Zoom with my parents. They don’t have real grandkids yet, but he’s good enough for now.”
Jacob Berg, 47, is an elementary school principal who lives in Dublin and is a longtime volunteer at the East Bay SPCA. When the shelter asked for volunteers to foster pets while it was shut down, Berg took Milo, a 9yearold domestic shorthair cat, on March 17. He was told he could return him on April 9.
“And of course that didn’t happen,” says Berg, whose nickname for the cat is “Milo the Menace” because he gets into things he shouldn’t and likes to rest and relax on Berg’s laptop. “I’ve had to shoo him off and he steps on all the buttons.”
Most families who come to the SPCA want kittens, so it can be difficult for older cats to find homes, Berg says. Milo the Menace has found his, says Berg. “We thought we would miss him if he was adopted by someone else.”