Fewer pets at local shelters

Fewer pets at local shelters

Fewer animals are being left at the local shelters here in fort wayne.

Both fort wayne animal care and control and the allen county s-p-c-a say the coronavirus may be playing a role.

Fox 55'sjentill neal joins us live to tell us why.

Jentill?that's right hunter both agencies are seeing a sharp decrease compared to last year ... which is a good thing because that means people are choosing to keep their pets.

Since the start of covid-19... more pet owners are able to spend time with their families.

And fewer pets are coming to shelters.>06:53:48-06:54:07 "typically this time of year, if we just look at our adoptions, our adoption center, we could have up to 25 dogs available for adoption.

That many cats available.

We have two dogs up for adoption today and ten cats so it has been dramatically a decrease in animals."this time last last year animal care and control had 1,231 for animal intake.this year it's 688.

That's from march 16 to may 15th.pasquinelli says thankfully there is something in place to help owners so they won't have to surrender their pets.06:53:13-06:53:30 "before any of this happened, last august, we implemented our pet assistance and rehoming program.

We were really trying to intervene.

If anyone needed to surrender their animal and put them intouch with resources and keep animals in their homes.

We were so happy that was in place."allen county spca is experiencing something similiar.

They were closed for a month due to the virus, but recently reopened.> 07:01:59-07:02:25"our intake numbers are drastically lower compared to last year.

Last year we did about 496 intakes from march 26 to may 26 today's date.

This year we've only done 123.it's about 75% less and really we've only been open 2 and a half weeks and doing appointments only.

That's caused our intake numbers to plummet."now that the state is reopened..

They're prepared for whatever as they bring their volunteer programs back.they know not everyone will have the opportunity to return to work.

06:55:09-06:55:23"a lot of people are unemployed right now and often times when people fall on hard times, we know surrendering their animal is something that they are faced with.

It will be interesting to see where things go down the line."

With the virus still present, pasquinelli says it's importnat to still have an emergency kit for your pet if something were to happen to you.so make sure you have a tote together of pets needs and have someone on standby to keep your pet.reporting live in fort wayne jentill neal... fox 55 news.