Animal shelters across Chicagoland are facing an interesting problem a year into life being not-so-normal: As the coronavirus pandemic keeps more people at home, animal adoptions are still surging and the high demand means more things than one.
Since the pandemic began early last spring, the Hinsdale Humane Society has seen numbers far greater than they’ve seen in previous years and securing the animals in the first place is a considerable undertaking, never mind what happens after.
“Since COVID started, it’s literally like a hunt in outreach to find new partners and new places to get dogs,” said Samantha Cheatham, Operations Manager at the Hinsdale Humane Society.
According to Cheatham, while they try to prioritize securing pets that people give up, which are referred to as “surrenders,” as well as local rescues, they’ve also been reaching out to other states and getting animals from Texas, Tennessee and Alabama.
In a transport that initiated in Alabama, one of their staff members recently drove to Kentucky to rescue 17 animals that weren’t being cared for adequately. Sixteen of those puppies are now housed at the Hinsdale Humane Society shelter and one of the dogs is being fostered by the staff member who drove down.
“In the southern states where it’s warmer, we’re seeing a lot more heartworms [a potentially deadly parasite that is transmitted by mosquitoes], which is a big cost we’re taking on taking these animals,” Cheatham said. “The dogs we just took on, 7 of the 17 had heartworm so that’s about $500 a dog in medical costs.”
Because the dogs are foster-based rescues, it’s up to Hinsdale Humane Society’s veterinarian to provide medical assessments, conduct tests and spay and neuter the dogs if they haven’t been, while Cheatham assesses their behavior before they go up on the shelter’s website.
“There’s a whole village that makes this all come together,” said Robin Carroll, Director of Marketing at the Hinsdale Humane Society, who adds that setting up the animals for success is just as important as securing them.
Of the new pet owners Hinsdale Humane Society has seen, there are plenty like Samantha Ryczek and Daniel Jimenez. The couple has always wanted to adopt a dog, but considered it more seriously after the pandemic hit and they moved into their new Western Springs home. They adopted their 3-year-old pup, Concrete, in October 2020 and have since been finding ways to help make life as regular as possible.
“We’ve been trying to do a good job of leaving for the whole day at least once a week and then periodically through the weekend,” Jimenez said. They have also been giving Concrete a frozen kong — a rubber toy with a hollow center which is stuffed with kibble or other foods — that he chews on happily in his crate when left alone.
“Anytime we leave, he goes right into his crate and he’s ready to eat [the kong] and go to sleep, and he knows we’ll be home at the end of the day,” Ryczek said. “We found that associating one toy with us leaving was a good thing to start and Hinsdale Humane Society reinforced it, they gave us a lot of his favorite treats that we put in the kong,” Jimenez added.
Those reinforcements and tips from animal welfare workers are, in fact, deliberate: many were concerned that pets would end up back in shelters once life returned to normal, or worse, if people were unprepared for the rigors of caring for an animal.
“We all thought that was going to be a concern with how the numbers were rising so quickly, but we kept putting messaging out there, blogs, emails and letting people know, ‘here’s what it’s going to be like, try to plan to not have your pet feel separation anxiety because you’re with them 24/7’, ” Carroll said. “I don’t know if that’s the reason why we aren’t getting large returns, but that is fabulous news to us because we were absolutely concerned that a lot of those animals would come back.”
Vicky Pasenko, co-president of the Evanston Animal Shelter, mirrored that sentiment. “I think part of it is because we’ve all found how important our pets are to us and people are hanging on to them in ways they weren’t before,” she said.
In addition to that, Pasenko believes there has been a shift in the animal welfare industry, where rather than taking in surrendered pets, organizations are focusing on helping people keep them.
“On our end, part of it was out of necessity, while our intake was down, we also could not have the same level of staffing to take care of all the animals that are normally in the building,” Pasenko said. “But it’s a good thing. If you think about it, who should lose their pet because they struggle to buy cat food?”
The Evanston Animal Shelter implemented a pet pantry where they give out a dozen bags of pet food a month. In 2020, they gave away about 30,000 pounds, which Pasenko hopes helped people who couldn’t afford to feed their pets and may have considered giving up their furry friends.
“Especially in the darker days of the pandemic, if I hadn’t had my dogs, I don’t know how I would have coped with it and I think a lot of people are that way,” Pasenko said. “Especially people who are older and alone, a pet might be the only thing that gets them out of bed in the morning and helping them keep that relationship is really important. There weren’t a lot of good things out of 2020, but some realizations like that can really be things we can hang on to and hopefully change the way we do things for the better, for the long term.”
That connection is something Claire Golla feels strongly. Golla, who lives in Oak Park, was faced with putting her cat down last summer before adopting another cat from the Evanston Animal Shelter. With her kids in high school and her and her husband working from home, it felt like the right time.
Berman, Golla’s orange tabby, who she describes as “very handsome,” was rescued from an abandoned apartment where he lived with other animals — some that had illnesses. Golla’s friend who is on the board of the Evanston Animal Shelter made the introduction while Berman was with a foster family waiting for a permanent home.
“I think people sometimes have a misconception that if an animal is in an animal shelter or they are a rescue that there’s some additional burden, people kind of clamor for these designer breeds,” Golla said. “But with a shelter, they’re providing foster care, getting to know the animal really well and they’re trying to make a good match with a family. He’s the most spoiled cat in the world.”
If you’re flirting with the idea of adopting a pet, many animal organizations recommend that people foster a pet first to see what it will be like. Some foster owners end up adopting the foster animal, while other pets get snapped up quickly by the new owners.
“It’s all good because the animal isn’t sitting in a cage in a shelter and people can have the experience of having an animal in their house,” Pasenko said. She mentioned that it makes even more sense to foster in a COVID-19 circumstance. “You can even help multiple animals over the course of being home because of the pandemic.”
Animal welfare workers like Cheatham, Carroll and Pasenko are continuing to keep up with the demand of processing adoption applications, driving long-distance to secure rescues, and doing the most to equip all these new owners with the know-how and guidance needed to keep their pets even after the regular hustle and bustle returns. But, they’re also happy to see a growing interest in shelter animals and pet adoptions.
“There are some animals here and there that are harder to adopt but in general, if a puppy is on the website, or a kitten, by the next day it’s gone,” Cheatham said. “It’s a good problem to have.”
zsyed@chicagotribune.com
