Stephen Frostick reached down and scooped up Roxie, a bright-eyed chihuahua mix, at the Whatcom Humane Society on Dec. 1. He stood back up next to his daughter, Hudson, with the newest addition to their family in his arms.
Roxie is one of the lucky ones: More than 200 dogs were euthanized between Jan. 1 and the end of November this year.
Fallout from the pandemic triggered a “perfect storm” of pet overpopulation, exacerbating euthanization rates as some dogs adopted during COVID arrive at shelters burdened with significant behavioral and medical issues, experts say. As the pandemic eased and workers returned to offices, unsocialized pets have been surrendered.
At the Whatcom County shelter, the largest increase in intake numbers and challenges are connected to dogs. While the number of cats being brought in is also on the rise, euthanization rates due to behavior issues remain relatively low.
“We’re in a crisis of care, because they just keep coming in the doors,” said Laura Clark, executive director of the Whatcom nonprofit. “It’s really been treading water and triaging emergency after emergency.”
The pressure on Whatcom Humane Society, an open-admission shelter, is compounded by pets being brought in from outside the county and even from British Columbia.
“It’s not uncommon for us now to receive surrendered animals from out of county — it’s a daily occurrence,” Clark said.
The Whatcom Humane Society runs the only animal brick-and-mortar shelter in the county, as well as a farm and a wildlife rehabilitation center. These are operated by a core staff of 43 and about 350 active volunteers, who help with about 4,500 animals annually.
By the end of November, the shelter faced a stark reality: Of 200 euthanized, nearly half the number was due to behavioral issues, such as biting, nearly double the figure from 2020. Additionally, 31 dogs were put down for medical reasons.
While the entire U.S. animal-care system is faced with the daunting task of navigating the crisis, open-admission shelters shoulder the heaviest burden. Open-admission shelters cannot turn away any animal for any reason, unlike limited-admission shelters — often self-advertised as “no-kill” shelters — where a team can mitigate their liability by refusing to take pets when their facility is full or when the animal has a significant bite history.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s a horse or a hamster, we’ve got to figure it out,” Clark said.
With the shelter pushed beyond capacity, euthanization rates started to rise sharply in 2022, Clark said. That year, intakes were up about 15%. The shelter faces a similar number of cases this year.
Nationally, intake numbers are also up, as are euthanization rates, which have nearly doubled between 2021 and 2023, according to data collected by Shelter Animals Count.
“We’ve really seen that the number of animals entering shelters has now reached where we were in 2019,” Shelter Animals Count Executive Director Stephanie Filer said. “And the number of animals in shelters continues to increase because we’re not sending them out as fast as they’re coming in.”
Clark noted that in Whatcom County, no sooner does the shelter celebrate a successful adoption than three more pets arrive, vying for the newly vacated space.
But, due to a variety of issues, not all pets that end up there are considered viable for adoption.
Amy Wilkinson, the animal care lead and behavior specialist at the shelter, is among those in the office who are faced with the difficult decision of whether or not to euthanize an animal.
“No one wants to euthanize an animal,” said Wilkinson in her office with Frank, a rescue dog she adopted from the shelter years ago.
Pets are typically euthanized due to severe illness, uncontrollable aggressive behavior, terminal conditions or an overly high population in shelters with limited resources for their care.
“It used to be kind of black and white,” Wilkinson said.
There were cases where a dog killed another dog or inflicted serious harm to multiple humans: cases where the dog would be euthanized for public safety reasons. There were also cases where a dog suffered from severe mental distress, self-mutilation or other medical conditions.
These cases still exist, but so do more borderline ones.
These are situations where staff feel that with just a bit more time, they could help dogs with behavioral issues, such as handling sensitivities or reactivity, overcome their challenges and become suitable for safe adoption. But, under the current circumstances, there isn’t always the time nor resources.
“We do our best to find the live outcome for every animal,” Wilkinson said before pointing out that the kennels have often been running at or beyond capacity in 2023. “There’s just a lot more borderline dogs that have expedited outcome decisions.”
Fueling the storm
Failure by owners to bring their puppies in regular contact with other dogs and other people during the pandemic has resulted in an increase in pets being fearful of strangers, dog aggression or other behavioral issues that impact adoptability. Many of them have bite histories.
“It’s not impossible to deal with those problems, but definitely more challenging,” Clark said.
Many people stopped working remotely by 2022, which opened the door to other behavior issues, said Christine Monroe, a Whatcom County veterinarian who founded Rescue Pet Vet in Ferndale.
For example, if a dog has rarely been left home alone, this could manifest as separation anxiety, which can result in the pet barking constantly, destroying household items or soiling the house.
Additionally, the economy has played a “huge” role in why animals are entering shelters, Filer explained.
“Generally animal shelters reflect what’s happening in a community,” Filer said.
Where homelessness is an issue, a lot of animals come into a shelter’s care because of housing issues. Where there is food insecurity, animals come in due to a pet owner’s inability to provide food for both of them, she explained.
“People can’t afford them,” Frostick said, waiting for the adoption of Roxie to go through. “People are stressed right now. The cost of everything is up.”
Pet owners are also struggling to find affordable veterinary care, Clark said. In these cases, Clark suspects that people might be waiting longer than they should to take a pet in for medical attention, leading to more desperate situations and, ultimately, ending with the animal arriving at the shelter.
There are solutions
Seasoned shelter workers agree that there is a path forward for communities struggling with pet overpopulation — but pointing fingers is not part of the solution.
“It’s really easy for people to want to place blame on someone,” Filer said. “What we’re seeing across the board, whether it’s shelters or pet parents, is that people are doing the best they can with what they have.”
Local experts say there are opportunities to rebalance pet populations in Whatcom County by addressing underlying systemic issues and educating potential pet owners about responsibilities.
For Wilkinson, it all boils down to increasing access to spaying and neutering, which fell far behind national goals during the pandemic.
The procedure can also help with certain behavior problems, noted Monroe, who runs Neuter NorthWest.
Additionally, Wilkinson said that more community volunteers would help. Volunteers can feed and provide enrichment activities to dogs who are already up for adoption so staff has more time with animals who are teetering on the borderline.
“As an animal welfare community, we’re all going to have to sit down and work together to solve this community problem,” Clark said.
A previous version of this story misstated the title of Amy Wilkinson. The story was updated to reflect this change at 10:16 a.m. Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2023. Cascadia Daily News regrets this error.
