Like animal shelters and communities across the country, we are experiencing staffing crises, veterinarian shortages, and slowing adoption rates, alongside a widespread lack of access to affordable veterinary care and pet-inclusive housing. Together, we can make sure all pets and people in our community have opportunities to thrive.
What does this mean?
All of these elements make it harder for animals and the people who care for them to thrive. Without support systems in place, more families are separated from beloved pets. Shelters and rescues are at or quickly approaching capacity for the number of animals they can help, and an already extended staff is prevented from providing the care and resources they want to provide.
What can we do?
It takes a community to confront complex problems and make change for the better. We collaborate with animal and human services organizations to strengthen our entire community's ability to care for one another, because we know every person can make a difference. Side by side, we can support the important bonds between people and pets and keep families together. You can start by pledging to #BeAHelper and spreading the word within your social circle.
Here are important ways you can take action and encourage others to do the same:
Help found animals get home
If you can hold a healthy, found pet for just 48 hours while searching for their owner, you can significantly increase the chances they will be reunited with their family. In the average shelter, less than half of dogs and fewer than 1 in 20 cats ever make it back home.
You might be surprised to learn that dogs are over ten times more likely to be reunited with their owners by staying in their neighborhood than by a visit to the shelter! That’s even more true for cats. A cat who looks healthy with good body condition and coat is very rarely lost and should remain where they are; even cats who are actually lost are as much as 50 times more likely to be reunited with their family if they stay in the neighborhood where they are found instead of being taken to a shelter. Take 48 and help your neighbors—human and animal. Learn more about what to do if you find a dog, cat, or kitten.
Adopt
Everyone deserves to experience the love and benefits of the human-animal bond. Adopt a pet from your local shelter, and you’ll not only change an animal’s life for the better, you’ll change yours too! You’ll also impact the lives of animals you don’t see by freeing up space and resources so that the shelter can help more animals who need homes, as well as sick or injured animals without a place to go. If you’re ready to open your home to a new family member—or if you’d like to know more—we’re here for you.
Foster
A home is always going to be quieter and less stressful than the best shelter space. As more pets enter shelters in need of homes and stay longer in search of them, you can ease the transition and give animals the kind of companionship and environment that reveals their authentic personalities and preferences (long walks at sunset or catnaps and Netflix?) by inviting them into your home on a short-term basis. According to Petco Love, if 2% more of the 85-million pet-owning households could foster just one pet a year, we could eliminate preventable euthanasia and save the lives of the 800,000 shelter animals at risk of euthanasia. Whether you foster a pet for a family member or neighbor or your local shelter, you’ll save lives and gain a friend!
Donate and/or advocate for funding to create and sustain crucial services
Just as building a strong house requires a variety of people and materials, building and sustaining the well-being of people and pets requires community resources, social relationships, and opportunities to thrive. Building well-being in your community depends on many people working together. Talk to your city and county elected officials about the importance of allowing shelters to waive or reduce fees so that reclaiming a lost pet or adopting a new one is affordable for everyone. Emphasize the urgency of funding staff and programs that address gaps in our system of care so that we can provide people and pets support they need to be well together.
It’s especially critical to encourage support for initiatives that build veterinary capacity and expand access to spay/neuter. When spay/neuter surgery had to be suspended during the pandemic, we fell nearly three million surgeries behind what would normally have been accomplished. A nationwide shortage of veterinarians and veterinary nurses is making it even harder to keep up with the need, let alone catch up from the deficit, which is compounded in communities that already lacked affordable veterinary care or veterinarians at all.
You can also donate to local animal shelters and partner organizations to help make sure we can waive or reduce fees that come between pets and people and provide essential resources and services, like vaccine clinics and low-cost spay/neuter vouchers, that bring and keep people and pets in our community together.
Spread kindness
People are doing the best they can to care for their pets while facing barriers to affordable, pet-inclusive housing and vet care. Through the national veterinarian shortage, current vets are serving anywhere from 1000–3000 households each. And because animal shelters and other community organizations are often chronically under-resourced, they are prevented from serving all the people and animals they wholeheartedly want to help, driving serious distress and burnout among staff. Veterinarians, shelter workers and volunteers, and animal services officers are at higher risk for suicide and PTSD. We could all use more compassion and less judgment; let’s show up for one another as we work together to build the well-being of people and pets in our community.
Whether you volunteer at a shelter or other community organization or reach out to a neighbor or friend to lend a hand (and a dog walk, training help, or pet grooming support), what you do matters. Try posting something positive about your community’s animal care organizations on social media, leaving a kind review, or writing a note of gratitude to recognize the efforts of your shelter or a team member.
Re-order or adapt the elements of this call to action to align with your shelter's needs and your community, or to highlight messaging inspired by the Share the Care campaign. You can also download this press release template, "[Organization Name] seeks urgent community action to help reunite people with their pets," and use it to update your community on shelter capacity and to encourage community action.
For more tools to help encourage community suppport, check out the HeARTs Speak Neighbors Helping Neighbors Communications Kit.