Valley Humane Society is a private nonprofit that aims to build healthier relationships between pets and people, but as of late adoptions of dogs and cats are on a decline, leading to overcrowding at the Pleasanton animal shelter.
“Well, first, it’s not because everyone that adopted during the pandemic is returning their pets,” Executive Director Melanie Sadek told the Weekly. “Statistically, it’s not proven to be true.”
According to Sadek, there’s a 16% decrease in the number of dogs entering the shelter now compared to the pre-pandemic.
A sudden surge in the demand for pets at the beginning of the pandemic had resulted in a shortage of pets at the shelter.
“We ran out of dogs in California in early 2020 and so people were kind of pushed to go into the internet and buy online,” Sadek said.
Online purchase of pets gained traction and online stores like Best Friends reported a 400% increase in pet sales, according to Sadek.
“Even the Animal Legal Defense Fund is reporting that California is the No. 1 importer of dogs and cats in this country,” she said.
This change has an adverse impact on shelters in the neighborhood arising a need for community intervention to spread the word and encourage people to adopt from local shelters, according to Valley Humane Society.
“We need to get people to share the care and understand that if we want life-saving outcomes for dogs and cats in California,” Sadek said. “We need to all be working together and collaborating, (otherwise) the system doesn’t work and animals are going to end up dying.”
Community members can help by adopting pets or providing support to help people from having to leave their pets at the shelter because of financial problems and food insecurity.
“We are very focused on trying to stop animals from entering the shelter (by) supporting people who are dealing with food insecurity. We provide hundreds and thousands of pounds of free food,” said Sadek.
Valley Humane Society also heavily promotes its available animals online.
“We have a program, where they can post the animal that they need to re-home and help promote that animal so that the dog and cat (don’t have) to go into a shelter,” according to Sadek.
People who have adopted pets from shelters have had great experiences and bonding with their pets.
“We adopted two pups from the Valley Humane Society, Scout is a red pit bull mix and Lacey is a black lab mix. We got Scout in November of 2021 and recently got Lacey in February 2022,” resident Jackie Massey said. “We love them to pieces.”
People in the community who cannot adopt pets can still help by volunteering to promote the animals and programs, according to Sadek. “We all have a network around us. And so even though we can’t take shelter pets, that doesn’t mean that they can’t promote the animals that are available and help them find a new home.”
According to Sadek, people have a misconception animals are in the shelter because they’re unhealthy.
“There’s lots of reasons why dogs and cats end up in shelters. And most of the time, it has nothing to do with them. It has to do with life situations around the owner who can’t provide care,” she said.
Sadek implored people to adopt local pets and provide them with a loving home this spring.
“We really rely so heavily on the community to come in and adopt because when you’re adopting, you’re creating more space for animals that are genuinely in need,” Sadek said. “It’s an incredible system of life saving that connects animals with their new families.”
