DOG GONE: RESCUE PET SHELTERS EMPTIED BY SURGE IN DEMAND DURING PANDEMIC

Some puppies are listed with adoption fees of $1,800 and in Victoria there have been 20,000 online adoption applications.

Dog shelters across Australia have been emptied after a huge surge in demand for a rescued companion during the Covid-19 pandemic, forcing some desperate prospective dog owners to wait months.

Rebecca Anderson has experienced Australia’s dog drought first hand.

“Our dog died in February, and we probably started looking around March because that’s what my daughter really wanted for her birthday, a new dog,” she said.

“Our local shelter wouldn’t even consider us because we had kids.”

Anderson started trawling pet rescue sites in Sydney daily, trying to find a dog that would suit her family. She was happy to take an older dog or one with special needs, traditionally some of the most difficult to adopt out, but had no luck.

“I would call people, I would send emails, and we weren’t even getting interviews … It was three months of looking and not one positive response.”

Anderson said she saw some shelters listing puppies with adoption fees as high as $1,800. In one instance she was knocked out of consideration because other dogs lived on her street.

Tegan McPherson, head of operations at RSPCA Victoria, said it wasn’t unusual to hundreds of adoption applications for dogs.

“We are certainly still seeing strong demand for pets,” she said. “From the start of the pandemic we have seen over 20,000 online applications to adopt our pets,” she said.

“That’s just in Victoria, and we know our interstate colleagues are also experiencing quite a high demand as well.”

Animals are leaving the shelter in half the time this year; the average stay in the RSPCA Victoria’s adoption shelters is down to less than four days.

“Waiting for pets to be adopted can often be the biggest bottleneck in the system,” McPherson said. “At the moment that’s certainly not proving to be the case.”

The shortage of was also due to fewer animals being lost or surrendered.

“Particularly during stage three [and four] restrictions, we saw a drop in the number of animals that were actually coming in,” she said. “With people being home their dogs or cats might have been less likely to stray or to go missing.”

By the start of August, six months into her search for a dog, Anderson was considering buying rather than adopting, but even then there was a three-year waitlist for puppies.

“I was even getting to the point of going to the local pet shop to buy one because I knew they weren’t from puppy farms,” she said.

However, luck was in her favour and, a few weeks ago she finally managed to take in two dogs, Pepper and Yogi, but not through the traditional adoption method.

“A friend sent me a post on Facebook,” she said. “It was a picture of a poster in a dog park that a couple had put up. They were moving into a retirement village where you weren’t allowed the two dogs.”

Within a week, Pepper and Yogi had joined the family.

Melbourne woman Shannon McKinn applied for 15 dogs before successfully adopting Brock, a four-year-old American Staffordshire terrier cross border collie, from the RSPCA. He’s a bit bigger than she was initially planning – they were initially looking for a small or medium-sized dog, weighing up to 20kg, but Brock is a “chunky boy” – he weighed 32kg when they brought him home at the start of July. He still believes he is lapdog-size, McKinn said.

“We are still getting the small dog experience, we are just feeling considerably more squashed.”

Victoria’s new pet rental laws came into effect on 2 March, just over a week before the pandemic was declared, and McKinn thinks the double-incentive – your landlord can’t say no and now you’re home all the time – is what has driven demand for pets in Victoria to unprecedented levels.

McKinn was already working from home up to four days a week, meaning that unlike others her dog won’t be in for a rude shock when – and if – working life returns to normal. She said Brock, a “sooky baby”, had made the return to lockdown in Melbourne much easier.

“The last couple of weeks would have been much more difficult if we didn’t have him.

Another Melbourne woman who has been trying to adopt a rescue dog said she received emails from the RSPCA saying that they were not reviewing applications during stage four lockdown.

The premier, Daniel Andrews, has since clarified that pet adoption is allowed to continue if shelters can do so in a Covid-safe manner, and Melbourne residents are allowed to travel more than 5km to adopt a pet if they have an appointment.

On Friday, RSPCA’s Melbourne shelters officially restarted their adoption programs.

But there those who adopted to beat the lockdown blues may find caring for their animals difficult when office work resumes.

McPherson said the RSPCA was preparing owners for this transition.

“We haven’t seen an increase in animals being surrendered but obviously there is a concern that we might see a surge when restrictions ease,” she said.

“We are encouraging people to make a bit of a routine for their pets to prepare them … This could be getting them to sleep by themselves. Try feeding them in a different room to you.

“Keep an exercise routine that you’ll be able to maintain when you go back to the office, and rotate toys and enrichment items for dogs and cats so that they’ve got that ongoing enrichment, and can entertain themselves when you are not around.”

Anderson said Yogi and Pepper have made themselves at home since joining their new family, becoming fast friend with the kids Aksel and Anja.

“They miss their old owners as they came from a loving home, but with Covid and me working from home they are not short on pats,” she said. “They are really great.”