“In the end, I have antibodies and a dog named Fauci.”
This is how the lawyer based in Los Angeles, Kari Milone, says that she chose to look back over the eight months that she spent trying to adopt a rescue dog in 2020 – a period during which she not only lost her second dog in less than a year, but also survived COVID -19.
Appointed according to Dr Anthony Fauci because “he has a white coat and was abandoned during Covid”, Fauci the dog is one of the approximations 3.2 million shelter animals that the American company for the prevention of cruelty to animals (ASPCA) Estimates are adopted each year. This year, the request for adoption of animals soar: as the home orders were issued in the United States in March in response to the coronavirus pandemic, the ASPCA shared that, according to data from the industry industry PetpointAnimal protection organizations across the country experienced an increase in adoptions in the second half in March, with an estimated national adoption rate of 58% at the start of the month, dropping to 85% by the end of the month.
“We have seen an incredibly compassionate response of people wishing to open their homes to promote and adopt vulnerable refuge animals during this period of uncertainty and applaud them to have intensified so heroically for animals in need,” explains the president and chief executive officer of ASPCA, Matt Bershadker. “This unprecedented compassionate response of communities across the country to support their local shelters reflects a great appreciation of the invaluable role played by pets in our lives.”
Despite fears that the home orders would lead to flooded animal shelters due to an increase in abandoned pets, officials of rescue organizations such as Care and animal control of Chicago (CACC) and the Society for the prevention of cruelty to Los Angeles animals (SPCALA) Say that the opposite was true.
“When homecoming orders were set in motion, we were concerned about the possibility of seeing an increase in requests for admission and a decrease in transfers and adoptions,” explains Jennifer Schlueter, head of public information in the CACC. “We were so happy to experience exactly the opposite of what we feared first … The demand for reception and adoption animals associated with a decrease in admission led us to fall to around 30 animals for a while at the end of spring and early summer.”
In Los Angeles, the president of the SPCALA, Madeline Bernstein, said that the refuge adopts pet as quickly as they arrive. “This is true across the country,” she says. “Animal shelters have been emptied of animals adopted by adoptions or favorites, due to what it is good, when families are at home during locking, to work with a new pet. And it is also a cover against solitude. ”
This is a trend that does not surprise long -standing pet owners like Caitlin McCarthy, which includes from the point how comforting animals can be, especially during stress or isolation. After her dog, a westie named Oscar, died in September, McCarthy, teacher of the public schools of Worcester in the Massachusetts, says that she could not last long without a baby.
“This pandemic was a very insulating situation,” she says. “I was grateful to have time with Oscar because his health had started to fail when the schools closed, so I was able to be with him. But after his death, I really did not notice not having it in the house because he was a member of the family. I work at home. I don't go out. I really failed to have a dog. ”
So when she saw that Northern New England Westie Rescue Inc. had shared some photos on Facebook of a few dogs that were in adoption, she jumped at the opportunity. “I immediately sent them a message,” she said. “It was not even something I thought of. I did it. Because I knew. I saw the small faces and I knew that one of them had to be mine. ”
About a week later, McCarthy met a volunteer driver in the parking lot of an Olivier garden to collect Finbarr, a 10 -year -old westie that had been saved from a “puppy mill” in Kansas. As soon as she held it, she said that she knew they had a link.
“I had gravity towards the photo of him that [the rescue] had published on Facebook. There was just something very moving in his eyes. So I told them I would be happy with any dog, but if I could meet him, I think he is the dog for me, “she said.” I went to get him and they opened the back of the car and he was there. I was so excited and it was shy, as you can imagine. But as soon as I picked him up, he licked me directly on the cheek. It's as if he knew, as if he said: “You're going to be my daughter, right?” And the answer was yes.
Since her arrival in her new house on October 26, Finbarr (a name that McCarthy says she has chosen because her late mother loved it) was fulfilled before the eyes of McCarthy. “It has been used as a puppy mill for 10 years. All his life was in a cage. He didn't know what a toy was. He had never had a name. He had never been outside to play. So I teach her all these things, ”she says. “And it's very cure for me too. He is like evidence of hope for a very disturbing period. When you see a dog that has survived in the most horrible circumstances and that it improves more and more every day, how not to feel hope about life in the future? ”
The emotional support that pets can offer to their owners is more crucial than ever at the moment, explains Rachael Silverman, a psychologist specializing in couple and family psychology which often prescribes animals of emotional support for patients. “With so much uncertainty and instability, animals provide people, especially children, with unconditional love, support and comfort and serve as distraction,” she says. “I had an 8 year old patient who told me how she shared her cat adopted with her grandmother so that her grandmother would have a piece of her with her and would not feel alone because she could not visit her.”
Staying at home in the middle of the pandemic has also prompted many animal owners for the first time to make the rescue step, and in doing so, to discover how much heavy emotional animals can be able to do. Since the adoption of their dog Nana, a mixture of 6 -year boxes, Badass Brooklyn Animal Rescue In April, Crystal Kayiza and Peter when it learned that she has a strange talent to go up the spirits.
“It is such a joy to have and is really listening to what people feel. I think everyone says that about their dog, but she is definitely aware of when someone has a bad day, “says Kayiza. “She is really weak and just wants to snuggle up with people and spend time. I think what was necessary during this period is to be able to take a break to watch the screens and sit on the ground with my dog for a little.”
Of course, it is not only dogs that provide these essential moments of lightness. When Elise Healy and her partner realized that they would not be able to make a trip to France that they had planned for March to celebrate higher education, they decided to adopt a new cat instead. They ended up saving poe, a short black domestic hair from Feline Rescue of the Seattle RegionWho, with their other Keaton cat, helped them to face the year.
“”[Poe’s] mad. He likes to be prosecuted in the house and play randomly in our towers and spend time with us. He falls from his chat tower, often. I don't think I can adequately explain how wild and hilarious he is, “said Healy.” It breaks the day to sit at your office by working and annoying and then you know, suddenly has a box moving in the house because it has entered and cannot go out. “”
2021 also seems to be a great year for animal animals: in January, a refuge dog will settle in the White House for the first time when the president elected Joe Biden will move with his major dog, a German shepherd that the Bidens adopted in 2018 from the Delaware Humane Association (DHA). It will be a historic day for supporters to “adopt, Don't Shops”, an increasing movement that encourages people to adopt pets from shelters and rescue groups instead of buying them from commercial breeders.
“Our staff and our volunteers are very enthusiastic about the idea that Major goes to the White House, mainly because it highlights the important work that we do to find big houses for dogs and cats. It's like, if one of our DHA adopts is good enough for the White House, it's good enough for your home, right? ” said the executive director of the DHA, Patrick Carroll. “And it is not only the DHA. It highlights the adoption for all the shelters of Delaware and throughout the country. I think that having a refuge dog goes to the White House will really help consciousness.”
This major and the other dog of the Bidens, champion, go to the White House will also mark the return of the secular tradition of presidential pets. “Americans are owners of majority animals,” explains Andrew Hager, historian in residence of the Museum for Pets of Presidential. “We are still expecting that from our presidents and we have obtained it for the most part because the presidents come from the American people and that is part of our culture.”
Bidens are would have Also plan to bring a cat. Perhaps, like so many other Americans, have been bitten by the pet of pet. Milone, for her part, says that even if it has only been a few weeks since Faaci came home, her presence has already explained one thing to her: despite the challenges she was confronted the first time, she wants to save another dog – and soon. “The only thing I have become absolutely certain is that I will get another rescue,” she said. “I need a month to become good with [Fauci]So that he and I know very well. So I will have a second.
