Animal shelters learned from the COVID-19 pandemic

As we mark the five-year anniversary of the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, we reflect on how it reshaped our world and impacted countless sectors of our economy and the way we do business. The field of animal services was no exception. Animal shelters across the country faced unprecedented challenges but also discovered initiatives that transformed their shelter-pet lifesaving efforts.

As the effects of the pandemic cascaded, they necessitated adaptations and insights that should have changed the way we think of animal shelters forever. The revelation for all of us should be that shelter-pet lifesaving comes down to an undeniable truth: Dogs and cats that don’t enter shelters have zero chance of dying in shelters. It follows then that keeping pets out of shelters should be a first-choice management protocol.

During the pandemic, we piloted programs and policies and learned that reducing intake into municipal shelters not only saves lives but unburdens staff to provide more time and attention to the dogs and cats in their care. Why not make those programs and policies permanent? After all, what other shelter metric is more important than preventing killing?

Many animal services teams responded to the pandemic by implementing return-to-home strategies, which focused on reuniting lost pets with their owners rather than bringing them into shelters. By rehoming before entering the shelter and empowering communities to help lost pets get back home, shelters saw a significant decrease in intake — and, as a result, were able to care for the dogs and cats truly in need. And the simplest change of all — they stopped accepting and impounding unowned healthy cats. Sadly, many free-roaming cats that wind up in shelters belong to someone in the neighborhood, but less than 3% of cats are reclaimed which puts them at risk of being killed in a shelter.

Prioritizing keeping pets in their homes, returning lost pets to their families quickly, and allowing cats to make their own way home can eliminate overcrowding in shelters and the consequent killing of pets for space.

One of the most heartening lessons from the pandemic was the way communities rallied to support shelters when asked for help. Fostering pets, not a new idea, became a cornerstone of alternative housing during the pandemic. With people spending more time at home, the number of foster families surged, providing temporary homes for pets and relieving shelters. This not only saved lives but also deepened community involvement. Fostering remains a central strategy for pet lifesaving.

This display of public ownership and concern for the safety of community pets proved that when shelter staff engage with their communities for time-sensitive and specific requests, incredible things can happen.

The lessons learned during the pandemic have shown that animal services can — and will — evolve quickly to meet the needs of their communities and the pets they serve. By making intake reduction a priority and allowing animal services to be decisive and swift in their lifesaving actions, we are creating a modern model that makes killing shelter pets an awful thing of the past.

COVID-19 reminded us that there is always a path forward, even in the most challenging times, and quite often it is a better path. With these lessons and insights in mind, we will continue to bring about a time when all animal shelters are truly safe havens for pets in need.

This guest essay reflects the views of Julie Castle, chief executive of Best Friends Animal Society, which collects data from more than 7,900 shelters and rescue groups.