HARRISBURG, Pa. — With many of us staying at home for one reason or another during the COVID-19 crisis, now could be a perfect time to add on another member to your family and adopt a local pet from a shelter.
"We had to fundamentally change our operations," Steven Martinez, Executive Director of the York County SPCA said. "The response overall has been incredibly favorable. You have that time to teach the new pet family member the rules of the household."
Just to name a few, the York County SPCA, Humane Society of the Harrisburg Area, Charlie's Crusaders Pet Rescue and more are allowing virtual adoptions to take place so you can still bring home a pet.
"What we're trying to do here is make it a one touch situation," Amanda Brunish, Marketing Director for the Humane Society of the Harrisburg Area said.
If you adopt through them and have other family members or pets in your home, you will be required to bring them on adoption day to make sure everyone is on board and gets along.
"Just making sure we're eliminating any extra steps, making a one-stop shop and maintaining social distancing," Brunish said. "If all goes well, you can have everything done that day and take that pet home with you."
Each shelter wants potential owners to remember, though, that adopting a pet is not a temporary situation to get you through the COVID-19 crisis.
"Once you go back to work and things go back to normal, your pet will still be there. It's a lifelong commitment," Brunish said.
If you're not quite ready to make the commitment, but want to help out in the meantime, you can always foster.
Catherine Dambrowski has fostered approximately 60 dogs over the past several years, including her current foster: 6-year old Angel.
"She was very scared and intimidated, but she opened right up to use and now can't leave us alone," Dambrowski said. "The reward is just seeing them as who they are--not this sheltered, depressed animal who comes into your home. You see their spunk before they leave. You know they're going to a better home and it's going to be their last stop," Dambrowski said.
With many of her fosters, she even gets updates from the owners and knows exactly where they ended up if she ever wants to visit.
"My first foster was Hope, and she was tied to a tree with chains all around her. I was like, 'I need her, I'm going to commit to her and she can stay with us," Dambrowski said.
In the meantime, the Humane Society continues their distribution of pet food through their food bank -- helping deliver over 3,000 pounds of pet food since the crisis started.
The York County SPCA is doing scheduled adoptions as well to limit flow of traffic in the shelters.
One thing concerning the shelters going forward is controlling the pet population. Spay and neuter surgeries since the crisis started have not been occurring, deemed an elective surgery. The York County SPCA alone does approximately 9,000 spay and neuter surgeries per year and have shut down the procedure for the last ten weeks. Shelter employees are concerned, as we move into kitten season and don't control the dog population as stringently either, that shelters may become overcrowded sometime this year.
"There isn't enough PPE going around. We anticipate it's going to be a very large kitten season this year," Brunish said.
If you would like to adopt or foster a pet in the near or distant future, you can find numerous links to shelters online. Below we have listed links to the websites who we talked to for this story.
York County SPCA: https://www.ycspca.org/
Humane Society of the Harrisburg Area: https://www.humanesocietyhbg.org/
Charlie's Crusader's Pet Rescue: https://www.charliescrusaders.org/