Alone No More:
People are Turning to Dogs, Cats and Chickens
To Cope with Self-Isolation
Working from home and unable to go out,
people are bringing home dogs and cats for companionship.
people are bringing home dogs and cats for companionship.
By Kim Kavin and Heather Kelly March 20, 2020
❤❤🐶🐱 🐰 🦆 🦔 🐷 🐥🐢 🐠 🐮 🐸 🐒 🐼 🦁 🦅 🐙 🦈 🐫 🐊 🐧🐺 🐯 🐜 🦀 🐘 🐆 🦏🐴🐍🦍🦒🐳🐐🦎🐌🦊🦓🐬🦈🐭🐻🐺🐿🦌🐜🐢❤❤
On
a normal Sunday at the PetSmart in Gaithersburg, Md., Lucky Dog Animal
Rescue would hold an adoption event and find homes for about 15 dogs.
But as coronavirus
news started to spread this past week, the waiting list skyrocketed
from 10 to 40 would-be adopters. “And we had 30 adoptions in three hours
at that event alone,” said Mirah A. Horowitz, the rescue’s executive
director.
As
schools close and millions of people across the United States work from
home, the promise of companionship even in a time of isolation is
prompting some to take in animals. Many say they finally have the time
to properly train and care for a new pet. Animal rescuers across the
country say they are seeing spiking interest in adoption and fostering,
as well as offers to help everywhere from open-admission shelters to
smaller nonprofit groups.
In California, where 40 million residents were ordered on Thursday
night to stay home except for essential jobs or trips, such as getting
groceries, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) noted an important exemption.
“You can still walk your dog,” he said.
That was
part of the appeal for Kathy Shield, a University of Berkeley graduate
student. After years of wanting a dog, Shield on Thursday adopted a
2-year-old brown-and-white dog from the Milo Foundation shelter in Point Richmond, Calif., and named him Atom.
“I’m a nuclear scientist, so it’s very on brand,” said Shield.
The
timing was ideal, because Shield is working from home and can help Atom
adjust to his new environment. She’s also excited to have someone to
talk to, even if he doesn’t have much to say back.
Plus,
it will help keep her on schedule. “Having a dog is going to force me
to get up early in the morning, because at an absolute minimum, I have
to let it out to pee,” Shield said.
The
decision to adopt pets flies in the face of some conventional wisdom
that discourages adding a new animal to a household during a stressful
or busy time of the year, such as the holidays. But the novel
coronavirus has created an almost parental leave-like situation for many
people — where, instead of dealing with a sleepless newborn, they’re
teaching a dachshund puppy not to chew on the ottoman.
“There’s
no question that animals provide incredible comfort and companionship,
especially during times of crisis — and they certainly appreciate the
attention — so we encourage people to continue to adopt or temporarily
foster animals in need,” said Matt Bershadker, president and chief
executive of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Animals, in an email.
Shelters
need the help. Some animal rescues in big cities are closing their
doors to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus between people, but
the animals still need to be cared for. Many organizations, hoping to
find foster homes for their remaining charges, are still processing
requests and handing off animals while closed to the public.
Animal
Care Centers of NYC — an open-intake shelter that received about 21,000
animals last year — put out a call for additional foster homes on March
13.
“We thought we’d get 50,” said Katy Hansen, director of marketing and
communications. “We got 2,000 people who filled out the application.”
The vast majority, Hansen says, are millennials who live with a
roommate, have no kids, and are either working from home or suddenly out
of a job.
“They most likely have a job that makes them work 14 hours a day —
people don’t come to New York City to start a family,” she said. “They
come to kick-start their careers. Now, they’re home, and they still have
that super drive and super ambition. Now, they’re just pointing it
toward helping animals.”
The ASPCA
says it’s seen an increase in people interested in fostering and
adopting animals in recent weeks, and it’s managed to find temporary
foster homes for most of its animals.
2DaRescue,
a nonprofit in Mesa, Ariz., has experienced a 30 percent increase in
adoptions and a 100 percent increase in fosters since the coronavirus
crisis began. In San Francisco, where residents have been ordered to
shelter in place since Tuesday, Muttville Senior Dog Rescue has adopted out 10 dogs already this week, and all the dogs found foster homes when it closed.
The Helen
Woodward Animal Center in Rancho Santa Fe, Calif., found a new home for
51 dogs, cats, puppies and kittens last weekend, up from a typical 33.
“We
were all saying, ‘Oh my gosh, what a weekend,’ ” said Jessica Gercke,
director of communications. Most of the applicants, she said, worked at
schools in the area, which had been closed.
At the
Humane Rescue Alliance in Washington, president and CEO Lisa LaFontaine
said thoughts have turned to the center’s 90 partners that transport
homeless dogs up north from crowded shelters in at least 15 southern
states. Her group is helping some create foster programs, as northern
shelters are less able to help.
Fostering also works well for those who can only help out during this uncertain period.
Maya
Dangerfield knows her job as a video producer is usually too busy to
accommodate a pet. So she and her husband decided to foster a dog while
working from home in Astoria, Queens, instead. They picked up the
poodle-mix named JWoww from Hearts & Bones Animal Rescue on Thursday evening and will be able to watch her as long as they have to stay home — at least another two-and-a-half weeks.
“I’m not getting sick of my husband yet, but it’s nice to have a little doggy. Just someone to hang out with,” Dangerfield said.
It
isn’t just dogs. People are bringing home all kinds of living creatures
for companionship during an unprecedented time of social isolation, and
they’re sharing photos on social media to provide a break from darker
news.
Pets
can also entertain younger family members at home — Kenneth Lynch and
Lauren Wakefield bought a blue-and-silver betta fish for their two young
children to help instill a sense of responsibility with feeding it and
cleaning the tank. His name is Freddy.
This will help their son “occupy some of his time in a more healthy manner” while he‘s home from school, Lynch texted.
Some people are getting animals for more practical reasons.
“We’re
kind of stuck at home, grocery stores are empty, and now we have these
chickens that are laying eggs for us,” said Kelly Bordas, a physical
therapist, stay-at-home parent, and new chicken owner in Oviedo, Fla.
Bordas and
her husband purchased their first two chickens recently and named them
Daisy Duck and Mabel, though they’re not always sure which is which.
They live in a coop on the family’s three acres of land and have been a
source of entertainment as much as food (they lay one small egg a day
each). Their young daughter helps take care of the new arrivals.
“She loves them, she always goes out there and she wants to pet them. She wants them to be her best friends,” said Bordas.
Bordas and
her husband purchased their first two chickens recently and named them
Daisy Duck and Mabel, though they’re not always sure which is which.
They live in a coop on the family’s three acres of land and have been a
source of entertainment as much as food (they lay one small egg a day
each). Their young daughter helps take care of the new arrivals.
“She loves them, she always goes out there and she wants to pet them. She wants them to be her best friends,” said Bordas.
They
named the dog Pepper Corona — for her gray-and-white patches of fur,
and for her entrance into their lives during this moment in history.
“It
feels good to adopt, and the kids are happy. It feels like the right
thing to do now on a psychological level,” Caplan said. “I look at this
dog and say to her, ‘I don’t know what your past has been, but your
future is about to be awesome.‘ ”
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Newest Shortage in New York:
The City Is Running Out of Dogs to Foster
By Bailey Lipschultz and David R Baker - March 25, 2020
By Bailey Lipschultz and David R Baker - March 25, 2020
Of all the shortages created by the coronavirus pandemic -- the toilet paper and the hand sanitizer and the bottled water -- the oddest of them all has to be dogs. Oh, and cats too.
That’s right, in the New York city area, the epicenter of the disease, there is suddenly a run on pets. At least of the adopted or fostered kind. Muddy Paws Rescue and Best Friends Animal Society are reporting shelters they work with are either all out of or almost out of cats and dogs after a surge in applications of as much as 10-fold in the past two weeks.
Ordered to shelter in place at home, and both a little bored and a lot anxious, New Yorkers apparently see the four-legged friends as way to calm frayed nerves. “For the moment we definitely don’t have any dogs left to match” with foster volunteers, said Anna Lai, the marketing director at Muddy Paws. “Which is a great problem to have.”
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