GSHS houses bumper crop

A bumper crop of kittens, that is. According to Cole Wakefield, Animal Services Director at Good Shepherd Humane Shelter, the facility took in 105 pets when general intake was reopened at the beginning of May.

“That’s more than we took in during the entire first six months of 2019,” Wakefield said. “Thankfully, several area rescues continued to intake and transport while we were closed. If they hadn’t, the influx may have been much bigger. So, the shelter was never over capacity but is still back to a day-to-day situation regarding available space for new strays or surrenders.”

Wakefield said the increase seems to be coming from two stress points: a robust kitten season and a backlog of animals that were held in the community, some as fosters, while GSHS was closed.

Meanwhile, the facility now has 53 animals in custody – mainly kittens – and 18 dogs.

“We’ve gotten plenty of medium to large sized dogs. Lots of great personalities and a few young ones, too. There is a bumper crop of kittens, with black seeming to be the ‘in’ color.”

Wakefield is hoping for a special home for two male adult cats, Theo and Trooper.

“This pair of sweet cats came in together from Adult Protective Services because their owner had passed away. I’d love to see these two go to a nice quiet home together. They were both declawed by their previous owner, so it’s the indoor life for them. Theo is a little shy and they both have been through a lot, their world has turned upside down, and they deserve a nice place to rest.”

Taking advantage of covid time

“We’ve got a great team out here,” Wakefield asserted. “During the initial phases of the covid crisis we staggered scheduling which led to more at-home time for the staff, and they used it to get “Fear Free Shelters” certified. That’s a five-hour training course on animal behavior and handling with an emphasis on reducing fear, anxiety and stress in the animals in our care. The course is now a mandatory part of our onboarding process.” 

All of the staff are now back on their regular shifts and hours for visiting have actually increased to seven days a week from noon to 5 p.m. As long as the weather is good most of the tours are in the outside runs, Social distancing and masks are encouraged, and the facility regularly sanitizes the surfaces of the facility with a medical-grade product as part of normal operation.

Where to from here?

As far as the overall effect of the shutdown on the facility, “It was nerve wracking to go months without our primary source of income, the thrift stores.” Wakefield admitted. “But our biggest challenge is the same as everyone else’s: the unknown. We don’t know what long-term economic effect everything will have or how that will impact the need for our services. We need to be nimble and proactively address the needs of the pets and people of our area, but the future has never been harder to plan for. Good Shepherd will continue to be there for our community, and we are actively searching for the ways we can be most effective. May’s large influx proves that we have to do more than sheltering. It’s time to patch the roof, not just empty the bucket.”

Regarding the effect of coronavirus on the national animal shelter industry, Wakefield said it would be interesting to see May’s national data and what happens over the next few months. “Many of the big shelters are still closed. When they reopen, we will really get a good idea of what’s happening.  

“We all saw the heartwarming pictures of empty shelters across the country, and there certainly was a sense that adoptions were way up. However, the data that has come out recently cast that assertion in doubt. It looks like shelters were empty not because of a surge in adoptions, but because they had simply shut their doors as a covid safety measure.

“Also, a lot of shelters, especially in urban areas, ramped up their foster care programs, which is awesome, but it is yet to be seen how that system will hold up when people start returning back to work. I hope it continues because fostering is much better for the pet than sheltering – but I am cautious.”