Shelters inundated with returned pets

By Ben McCarthy

When Michelle Lascon took over as Director of Operations for KC P.A.W.S. in 2019, the Waldo-based animal shelter was getting around 10 calls a week from distressed area families inquiring about how to go about surrendering an animal.

Now, the phone rings constantly throughout the day, and Lascon says there appears to be no end in sight to what she and other area animal shelters are calling the worst animal welfare crisis of the last 20 years.

“We’re getting 40-50 calls a day from families wanting to surrender an animal,” Lascon said. “We’re at capacity, just like every other [animal shelter] and it feels like it’s going to be never ending.”

Lascon says they have had a rising influx in surrender requests for years now, and pinpoints COVID-19 as the major inflection point. She says now that people have gone back to work, they’re leaving dogs home alone and not taking the time to socialize or exercise their dog. This has resulted in a great number of dogs displaying “anxiety-driven” behavior that pet owners are choosing to not deal with. With area shelters overflowing with requests, there is little that she can tell these pet owners on how to cope with their situation.

“We’re trapped in a vicious cycle,” Lascon said. “The screening of prospective adopters went down after COVID, and more animals were being sent to homes that weren’t a good fit.”

Tam Singer, CEO for Great Plains SPCA echoes Lascon’s urgency on what she calls a national crisis. Like Lascon, Singer also points to a lack of patience and tolerance that now characterizes many pet owners as to why shelters are overwhelmed.

“Since the pandemic, we’ve seen the animal welfare community in crisis,” Singer said. “We’re seeing more pets returned to shelters within 24 hours – sometimes for something (as trivial) as barking.”

Singer, who grew up in England and came to Kansas City 8 years ago, says COVID instigated a dramatic increase in “designer breeding,” followed by people returning to work and neglecting their pets. The Merriam, KS-based Great Plains office, which serves animal control operations around Johnson County as their lost/found pet shelter, is also swamped with a record high volume of surrender requests coming from all over the Metro area. The continued rising costs of pet ownership, as well as the lack of access to affordable veterinary care, are the chief reasons owners state when requesting a surrender.

“Since March, we have fielded over 1800 calls about surrendering a pet, with over 800 of those moving forward,” Singer said. “That resulted in taking a total of 1357 animals since then, but in June, alone, we took in 313 pets.”

Amy Klein, owner of Lily’s Play-N-Stay in Belton, hopes to have a new animal shelter up and running by the end of summer. Her husband, Justin, works through the stifling heat to build out “Lily’s Rescue Rehab,” which will have 28 rooms to house animals. The facility is located at 1016 N Scott Ave., not far from her current pet boarding operation. The animals will be housed on the north side of the building, with a spacious training area on the southside, as Klein focuses on taking in and rehabilitating more pets deemed unadoptable or targeted for euthanasia.

“It’s so intense in the animal rescue world right now,” Klein said. “But this is why we created Lily’s and I’ve spent my whole career with animals.”

On August 9th, Barks, Brews, & Blues at Transparent Brewing Company in Grandview featured some of the adoptable dogs from Rescue Rehab. A community open house of the new facility is planned for October 11th.

Klein says the new website, lilysrescuerehab.org, should be showscasing dogs for adoption by the end of August.

Many area rental properties have also adopted far less pet-friendly policies in the wake of COVID, further squeezing the number of viable candidates for pet ownership around town. Lascon says the changing attitudes towards pets is a bigger issue that troubles her more than anything else.

“People don’t want to be inconvenienced anymore with a lifelong commitment to anything,” Lascon said. “When I started 12 years ago, your pet was considered a permanent part of the family.”

The team at KC P.A.W.S. remains active trying to create new ways to get shelter dogs out into the community. That includes making creative videos on TikTok, and hosting their first ever “Barks and Beats” fundraiser on Saturday, August 23rd, at nearby 75th Street Events.

Casey Waugh, communications manager at Wayside Waifs, says they forecast local shelters continuing to be in similar boats moving forward, with no signs of a slow down in pet abandonment or surrenders. She sees a combination of economic factors continuing to weigh heavily on the situation, including inflation, and couples moving and downsizing into smaller dwellings.

“The great thing about Kansas City, is that the community is still trying to help adopt, and even if they can’t take in a pet at this time they still donate and try to support these operations,” Waugh said.