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, co-executive director of the city’s . “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.”“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, like additional pet food. If not, they try to understand why they have to let it go. Barnett said eviction, homelessness, and landlord issues are major reasons.Philadelphia Animal Welfare Society“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 one 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.in Lindenwold. “Since June, I’ve probably taken 250 animals from them.”‘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.