Birthday girl Peaches is among the senior canines available for adoption through Young at Heart Senior Pet Adoptions in Woodstock.
Fifteen months ago, as the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated, would-be pet owners flocked to shelters seeking animal companions.
Though some shelters across the country are reporting an uptick in pandemic pet returns this spring, that does not appear to be the case in the suburbs: Commitments established during COVID-19’s darkest period are enduring now that brighter days have arrived, according to local animal welfare experts.
“We were inundated with adoption applications. To be honest, we still are,” said Christina Morrison, director of development for the West Suburban Humane Society in Downers Grove.
During the pandemic’s early days, the humane society didn’t have enough dogs and cats to fulfill requests, Morrison said. “We were getting 10 applications for every puppy we had at the time.” The society logged about 550 adoptions during 2020 — about the same number as in 2019 — despite the facility being closed for 45 days early in the pandemic.
And Morrison said the animal care team reports that no one has called to surrender a pet “just because the pandemic is over and they want to get back to ‘normal’ life.” The society’s adoption contract asks that people who’ve adopted a pet and have to surrender it return the animal to the society where volunteers will help find new homes.
Gaby Keresi-Uresti, executive director of the Heartland Animal Shelter, said more than 1,000 animals were adopted from the Northbrook agency during the pandemic, more than in any of the last 10 years.
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