Toronto Humane Society, shelters struggling as owners surrender pets welcomed during pandemic

While welcoming a pet into your home can be an unforgettable experience, one many people took part in through the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, some pet owners are starting to surrender their animals as they realize they don’t have the means to take care of them.

Animal shelters and foster organizations have noticed a sudden increase in owner surrenders, and now, they are struggling to keep up with the demand.

Melissa Shupak, the Division Manager of Shelter Programs at Toronto Humane Society, tells CityNews rising costs have much to do with it.

“The rising cost of care, access to care, unstable housing, job insecurities and all those factors where people are ending up, where they have animals that they love and are devoted to and committed to, but then they’re stuck in this position of how do I continue to provide care for them, or can I do that while also maintaining that with myself.”

Shupak said some people have come to them trying to decide between providing food for their family or their pet.

“It’s one of those things where these people genuinely care and love their animals. They’re just being impacted. So, while the pandemic is sort of at the root of that, as we come out of that, it’s not so much we’re seeing that they got these animals during the pandemic when life was a little bit different, and now, they’re just no longer caring for them.”

Toronto Humane Society provides multiple options to families struggling to care for their pets, including dog food banks, vet services and urgent foster care. They say there’s been a considerable uptick in the use of these services.

“Sometimes when we run them here on 11 River Street, we have a line up around the door that just sort of tells us what our community, our neighbours need right now is just sort of some of those basics.”

They add these preventative services are an attempt to get ahead of the pet surrenders.

“Instead of just focusing on bringing in as many animals and trying to rehome them when there is that human-animal bond, what do they need, and what can we provide for them so they can stay in that loving home together.”

At a time when surrenders are high, they are also seeing a lower trend in adoption numbers.

“We’re not having the animals move through as quickly as we could sort of make some correlations there that people that are, again, coming out of that post-pandemic world aren’t ready to take in an animal right now.”

Denise Angus, the founder of Mattie’s Place, a not-for-profit volunteer rescue centre, called it a “real crisis.” She admits they struggle to keep up the demand between shelter requests, stray dogs and owner surrenders.

“We have an all-time high of people needing to surrender their pets and, again, homeless pets. We can only take on so many pets that we have foster homes for and space for,” said Angus.

“We’re at about 57 dogs right now … and we can only sustain so much so financially and just to give them the support they need.”

Mattie’s Place was forced to close its intakes for the last three weeks in hopes they can replenish some of their funds and have some of the dogs adopted, which can lead to some dire consequences.

“Dogs are being euthanized daily in local shelters. They rely on us as rescues to take their overflow quite often. And rescues are just saying no right now,” Angus said, adding the best thing they can do is help support dog owners.

Mattie’s Place also offers a pet food bank, feeding about 1,200 pets every month. “This has helped keep many pets and their owners together.”

“I think we need to offer more support, whether it’s temporary housing for pets in a foster system and the pets can return to the owners,” added Angus.