Virtual pet adoptions emerge amid outbreak

By Nate Atkins
Lansing State Journal

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — The animals stare out from photos on a website, reduced to a name, a gender and an age. They hope this is the time you will click to learn more.

The Capital Area Humane Society in Lansing has 19 pets available for adoption, ranging from dogs to cats to guinea pigs. They can’t have visitors during the COVID-19 pandemic, so they’ll hope to find homes through a virtual adoption.

For some of them, this could be their best chance yet, the Lansing State Journal reported.

Thanks to donations from the Bissell Pet Foundation, the Capital Area Humane Society is offering pet adoptions until May 17 for $25. That is down from the standard rate of $175 for dogs and $50 for cats.

The donations come through a movement called “Empty the Shelters,” a process that has been easier than some in the adoption community saw coming.

When Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer ordered most businesses to close in late March, the animals stuck in shelters largely went to live with foster care families to wait out an unpredictable period.

Then curbside pickup became an option at stores and restaurants, and animal shelters discovered they had a chance to treat adoptions that way, too.

“We obviously love people to come in and spend a good amount of time with the animals and to pick and choose from a variety of animals,” said Julia Wilson, president and CEO of the Capital Area Humane Society. “We’re just not in a place right now where we can allow those kinds of freedoms within our facility.

“We had to get creative or completely stop what we are doing.”

The alternative has been virtual adoptions. Interested owners sort through available pets on the website (cahs-lansing.org), where they can click on a pet to see more photos and learn a little background.

They can learn that Hoolu, a large 8½-year-old mixed breed, is a “sweet old man” who loves to learn new tricks. They can meet Sophie, a 9-year-old cat with long grey and white fur who prefers naps and quiet environments.

These descriptions are meant to start a phone conversation with shelter staff about the animal’s living and veterinary history. Interested owners can then schedule a time to meet the animal and, if they wish, to bring it home.

No animal operates in a cage the way it would in a home, which always makes matching pet to owner an inexact process. But since these animals went to foster care for at least two weeks starting in March, shelter staff have gained a better understanding of how they will operate around children and in apartments and houses.

The animals got to taste what it’s like to live in a home with people, making them more ready to step into that environment.

And these days, people are home so much of the time. More than 1.3 million Michigan residents have filed for unemployment over the past seven weeks. Many others are finding ways to work or take classes from home. As of May 10, more than 47,000 residents had tested positive for the coronavirus, with many recovering from home.

For the pain and struggle the virus has caused, quarantining has brought a rekindled relationship between many people and their pets. It has added time to house-train a puppy.

It’s created a break in the busiest of lives.

At the start of the virus, Wilson couldn’t help but fear the worst. When people get sick or lose income, they sometimes have to give pets up for adoption. Around 65% of the Capital Area Humane Society’s animals come from these types of surrenders, Wilson said.

But animal drop-offs have not been higher than normal, Wilson said. The shelter had one instance where it had to send staff into a home to retrieve the pets of owners who were hospitalized with the virus.
Some people need pets now more than ever. During quarantine, more than 3,000 pet adoptions have taken place through the Bissell Pet Foundation.

“You have to think of people who live by themselves: They’re right now isolated and the only companionship they really have is their pets,” Wilson said.

After weeks of uncertainty, the animals at her shelter are ready to fill that void in someone’s life.