Even though the shelters are closed to the public with only limited information available about pets, L.A. residents stuck at home adopted pets to eliminate loneliness.

In some cases, people tend to return pets because they don't have the time, energy, or desire to care for them. With the lifting of COVID restrictions, people are returning to their normal lives.

Shelters face challenges about the dissatisfaction among the masses owing to decrease intake of strays and helping hard-to-adopt pets.

Some shelters, like the Pasadena Humane and South L.A. Animal Services Center, have started to open to the public on weekends, which makes it convenient for people to visit pets before adoption. Moreover, they also educate the public on some fundamental knowledge to address when they meet strays or pets in the streets. What’s more, South L.A. Animal Services Center also offers free pet food to reduce adopters’ financial stress.

The Trend of Pet Adoptions

The South L.A. Animal Services Center opened to the public on weekends in August, and adoption numbers are up as compared to this time last year.

“One of the things that we've noticed, especially now that we're open to the public on the weekends, is we're getting more foot traffic and we're getting more adoptions across the board,” said Khosrowabadi.

Cats in South L.A. Animal Services Center
(Courtesy of Yixuan Chen)

South L.A. Animal Services Center or Chesterfield Square is one of the biggest shelters from the six Animal Services Centers in L.A. Animal Services. They were operating on an appointment-only basis for most of the pandemic, and still aren’t accepting walk-in visitors Monday through Friday. But on Saturdays and Sundays, the center doors are open to the public so residents can just walk in without an appointment to adopt from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Prospective pet owners can fill out an online application to shorten wait times on the phone when making appointments. L.A. City residents can also call 311 to get connected with L.A. Animal Services to schedule an appointment.

The shelter also provides some resources to help people stay with their pets. Every Sunday they have the pet food pantry where they provide food for pets owners who may need the extra help because of tight money due to loss of work for COVID or any other reasons.

However, the trend in other shelters including the Peter Zippi Memorial Fund, Pasadena Humane and the Carson/Gardena Animal Care Center has dropped post-pandemic.

The number of pet adoptions in the Peter Zippi Memorial Fund is returning to pre-pandemic numbers. They've adopted 43 kittens and 26 adults this year who only adopted 9 kittens and 34 adults last year.

“Last year, we saw a boom in adoptions as it related to people being home more as we came into 2021, and restrictions were lifted. We started to see a reduction in interest. However, we still have a few months in the year, so we don't know exactly where we're going to land.” Christine Lugo, the president of the Peter Zippi Memorial Fund said.

What’s more, although the interest in adoptions skyrocketed during the pandemic in Pasadena Humane, which is a donor-funded nonprofit organization that provides animal support services for the animals of San Gabriel, the adoption rate decreased this year.

“We haven't seen waning interest in adoptions. We still have a lot of people wanting to adopt,” Jack Hagerman, the vice president of Community Engagement for Pasadena Humane, said. “But the shelter’s population continues to be smaller than what it has been in years past.”

The shelter is open to the public twice a week on weekends from 2:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. All services are in an appointment-based system to make it safer for guests and the shelter could provide better customer service.

The trend of cat adoptions has slowed in the Carson/Gardena Animal Care Center from Los Angeles County Animal Care & Control, although an explosion in the population of Kitties doubles the triple, according to the volunteer Lisa Avery.

Pets Make Adopters Better

Pets play a vital role in the lives of their human friends, studies show.

Rebecca Tang, a full-time customer experience manager living in San Bernardino County, adopted her fifth pet, Nuggy, from South L.A. Animal Services Center.

Tang only gets to see the dog information on the website, including the photo, age, breed, sex, which lacks personality descriptions or living habits about the pets. Meanwhile, visitors are not able to make multiple appointments for several animals that they're interested in.

When Tang finally made an appointment to visit Nuggy, she also couldn't meet the dog too close because the shelter had a bar gate in the front. They would let the visitors go up to the gate and the dog and another staff member were on the other side.

“The process used to be really interesting or much quicker pre-pandemic,” said Tang. Visitors were able to go into the shelter around the kennels. “Once they meet the pets, they are able to figure out if that's a good fit or not.”

People who have pets tend to have lower blood pressure, heart rate, and heart disease risk than those who don't. Those health boons may come from the extra exercise that playing and walking require, and the stress relief of having a steady best friend on hand. Scientists are now digging up evidence that animals can also help improve mental health, even for people with challenging disorders.

Lai Xu, a Ph.D. student majoring in Quantitative Psychology at USC, became more social because of her dog, Smoky.

“I used to be a very shy person because I don't really know how to start a conversation,” said Xu.

Smoky is sleeping in his new home
（Courtesy of Yixuan Chen）

But everything changed once she found Smoky. While walking her dog, she talked with strangers about the dog. She’s made many friends with her neighbors because of Smoky. Also, she feels she takes more responsibility because she needs to take care of both Smoky and herself. “He's good company. I feel like he is really hard and he's always there for me. He's my emotional support dog right now. ” said Xu.

She adopted Smoky from South L.A. Animal Services on her birthday, after watching animal videos on her phone and being inspired to become a pet parent.

“I think that it gave me time to think if I can take care of one and I realize that they can be a good company during this time,” said Xu.

The shelter offered an uncertain historical summary of the pets as a result of it is hard to know if the pets are getting on well with people or other animals, during the pandemic. The adapters also don't know pets’ behavior habits and how to establish relationships with different breeds.

Xu read that people tend to abandon their animals and go back to their normal life towards the end of the pandemic so she decided to help those animals. She went to the shelter where the cats are free for adoption because the staff said 30 more cats and kittens would arrive next week and they want to get rid of the cats as soon as possible.

She chose to adopt a senior pet because she is not willing to make them spend the last few years of their life in the shelter and risk being put down. “So I was thinking if I should just adopt a senior dog or cat who are always the first to go instead of a dog and puppies,” said Xu.

Challenges of Shelters still Exist

In the context of the epidemic, although shelters made some changes like the opening to the public on weekends, they still face some challenges including people’s dissatisfaction with “refuse stays intake”. Helping hard-to-adopted pets to find homes is also a big challenge.

In some cases, people dump their surrendered pets at the shelter because they cannot enter the shelter due to COVID restrictions. Volunteer Avery witnessed this situation and looks out for the cats on the streets who had no shelter and no care.

However, Pasadena Humane and South L.A. Animal Services Center are trying to educate the public and prefer them to keep pets or stray animals in their home.

Although Pasadena Humane has already found cats and kittens inundate throughout the year leading to a huge community cat issue.

They insist the stray cat is a rare situation and most cats outdoors know where they are. Because cats have an 83% likelihood of finding their way home. But they have only a 3% chance of finding their way at home if they're brought to a shelter.

“If you see a healthy, free-roaming cat in your neighborhood doesn't mean that that cat is homeless. It also doesn't mean that that cat is lost. It just means that the cat happens to be in your neighborhood,” said Hagerman. “The only time you ever want to intervene with that animal is if it looks sick or injured. That's when you want to bring it into a shelter.”

The same is true for the South Los Angeles Animal Services. They have been committed to educating the public about their choices, for example, if they find a stray pet or a lost pet, theyw ill post a lost pet sign. Because many people want to take them directly to the shelter.

Additionally, senior pets, big pets, or pets with behavioral or health problems are hard to be adopted.

Pasadena Humane found Adopters prefer to adopt the cute, fluffy one. Therefore, the challenge is finding those people in the community willing to take a chance on a large pet or an animal who might need to take medication for the rest of its life.

“I hope people consider adopting older dogs because they need homes and people who can afford it, too,” Pozo said.“I think an older dog is a really great companion.”