More furry friends find homes during lockdown
Animal adoption has risen markedly at Santa Fe Animal Shelter and Humane Society
Year after year at Christmastime, Harper Hofmann asked for the same thing, and she never got it.
But in the middle of a July heat wave, Harper’s holiday wish became a reality: a dog named Kota.
“It finally happened,” the 11-yearold Wood Gormley Elementary School student said as she and her brother, 15-year-old Asher Hofmann, waited for their mother, Tracy Hofmann, to fill out the final paperwork at the local animal shelter to take Kota home.
The timing is right, Tracy Hofmann said. She had already decided the kids are going to be schooling from home during the upcoming semester because of the COVID-19 threat, and since she is home as well, it’s a good time to train a new dog and help it adapt.
“The dog is their responsibility. They asked for it, so I want them to be primary caretakers,” she said.
“Not being in school is affecting them socially, emotionally. What better time to get a dog? Because
they can’t see their friends.”
The Hofmanns aren’t the only ones taking in homeless dogs and cats from the Santa Fe Animal Shelter and Humane Society during the pandemic, said Executive Director Jennifer Steketee.
“With more people working from home and being home, this is the perfect time to help integrate new pets into the household,” she said. “Especially if they are dealing with other pets in the home. It provides a good breaking-in period. You get to know them, they get to know you and they get used to your home.”
In an only-during-COVID twist, animal shelters are running out of four-legged inventory as pent-up humans, perhaps lonesome for companionship, start taking in canine companions and feline friends.
Husband and wife Mario Girard and Roey Valim said they found it difficult to adopt a dog they wanted from the local shelter during the early months of the pandemic. “We’d look online in the morning and call later that day and they were already gone, which is a great problem for the shelter to have,” Girard said.
Eventually they found Ella, a red heeler mix, to join their home and keep their other dog, Cosimo, company. The timing couldn’t be better, Valim said. They have more time to train Ella and get her used to Cosimo, who is older.
“Ella is easier to train with us home. She’s bonding to us fast,” Valim said.
Ella wasn’t the only one to find a home quickly. Over the past week or so, Steketee said Howie and Binx, a pair of sibling kitty cats, were adopted. So was Lucy, a black and tan German shepherd mix, and Snowball, a hamster.
All were adopted quickly, said Steketee and Murad Kirdar, spokesman for the shelter.
“People are opening the homes to not one, not two, but a third and even fourth animal,” Kirdar said. “We’re doing great. I think it’s because you’re stuck at home, you’re lonely, you have all this time and you can’t really go anywhere. So it’s a great time to train a dog, go on walks with him.
“I have dogs, and it’s like they’re my best friends and I tell them all my problems,” Kirdar added.
Another benefit of the high adoption rate is that when the no-kill Santa Fe shelter frees up kennels, it can take in transfers from other shelters around the state that may not be able to offer their animals an unlimited time to board.
To help people adapt to their new adoptees, the shelter has initiated a weekly video series, “Training Tip Tuesdays,” which features short, “how-to” training videos dealing with subjects such as getting your dog to lie quietly on a mat or to give up something they are holding in their jaws.
Steketee said there is no evidence so far to suggest people may give up these new pets once they return to work or school.
“Lots of people who have never had pets are finding that this [pandemic] is just the right time to adopt,” she said.
Not everyone is adopting merely to shoo away the lonesome blues for themselves.
Sharon Henderson said she adopted a new cat in mid-June to keep her other cat, Io, company.
“When we leave to go on errands or take supplies to my mom in Abiquiú, when we come back the poor cat [Io] acts as if we abandoned her, and that made me feel bad,” Henderson said.
“During this time when we need to have that comfort that we’re not alone, she needs to know she’s not alone, either,” she said.