How important are Triangle’s animal shelters in a pandemic? A lot, actually.

If Jennifer Bachman won the lottery, she says the first thing she would do is buy Durham County’s animal shelter a new space for the dogs to play in.

The current play area is concrete, with a kiddie pool filled with sand and a few squeaky toys, she said. The inside is cramped, stuffed with file cabinets.

“The shelter looks, you know, not very pretty,” said Bachman, who has volunteered for over three years. “But it’s beautiful [what happens there], and the staff is amazing.”

Like almost everything else, however, the Animal Protection Society of Durham has had to reinvent how its shelter operates this year.

“One thing that I have learned, and I’ve always known this but it never fails, is that anytime there is a crisis or need, the people in Durham do pull together to help each other,” executive director Shafonda Davis said.

A longer adoption process

Like other animal shelters in the Triangle, the Durham shelter closed to the public when the coronavirus struck North Carolina.

“Every animal we had here that was available went to a foster home,” Davis said. “At that time, that was at least 70 or more animals.”

The shelter partly re-opened for adoption appointments in June, after Durham County Animal Services resumed responding to stray dog calls.

But the shelter now handles more adoptions remotely, as over half of the adoptable animals are with foster parents. While people could previously walk in unannounced and walk out holding a new kitten, the switch added some steps.

When adopting through a foster parent, one fills out an online form for an animal after looking at a photo. Then, a shelter worker goes through the applications one at a time. That person contacts the animal’s foster parent, who then schedules a video chat with the applicant.

There are about 143 animals in the shelter currently, development director Darlene Fiscus said. The total includes 71 cats, 63 dogs, eight small animals like rabbits and guinea pigs, and one duck.

Another 205 more animals are in foster care: 116 cats, 63 dogs, 24 small animals and two birds.

The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals of Wake County runs a similar process, involving back-and-forth phone conversations between shelter staff and potential adopters before applicants can meet a puppy snout-to-face.

The process can take twice as long as usual, said president and CEO Kim Janzen.

“It’s the same as if you or I were going on a date with someone, and seeing their picture online, and then having a conversation face-to-face.” she said. “You know, you really can’t tell a lot from Match.com.”

Tons of donated pet food

But some shelter services haven’t slowed down.

In April, APS of Durham created a pet food and cat litter pantry, which residents may access online.

It distributed 458 pounds of food in May. In November, it distributed three times that — 1,222 pounds of food — plus 140 pounds of litter, mostly through community donations.

In Wake County, shelters are giving out even more food, by the tons.

SPCA Wake distributed 23,000 pounds of food and 9,000 pounds of litter to financially strapped pet owners this year, Janzen said.

That’s the equivalent of eight, full-grown hippopotamuses.

“I can’t even wrap my brain around that,” Janzen said.

The extra help may also explain why fewer Durham residents are surrendering their animals to the county shelter this year, operations manager Leah Santelli wrote in an email to The News & Observer.

About 700 animals have been dropped off at Durham’s shelter during the pandemic, compared to 1,100 animals during the same time period last year, she said.

Still, some people have let their pets go because of pandemic-related hardship.

Bachman, a physical therapist, helps the shelter process animal intakes as a volunteer. She has seen some surrendered because of COVID-19, she said, including some whose owners died from the virus.

“They can’t keep their dog because they’re being evicted, or they have to move in with someone else and they can’t have the dog,” Bachman said.

As a policy, the shelter doesn’t turn animals away for any reason, Fiscus said.

The shelter has euthanized 1,292 animals this year, a decrease from 1,687 last year. About a third of the animals were feral cats, and most of the others were put down for behavioral or medical reasons, Fiscus said.

Animal shelters and public health

Beyond being a resource for animals, an animal shelter is a healthy resource for humans, Durham County Commissioner Heidi Carter said. Durham’s shelter is funded by county government, donations and fees.

“When there’s a bond between people and pets, it supports our emotional well-being, our physical well-being, and the animal shelter helps increase connections between people and animals,” said Carter, who is a member of the county’s Animal Welfare Advisory Committee.

Working at the shelter has been good for Bachman, a single mom whose teenage daughter has also volunteered.

She also fosters three kittens, Rosemary, Sage and Thyme, named after the Simon & Garfunkel song “Scarborough Fair.”

“I absolutely love it,” she said. “Because it’s kind of like therapy without a co-pay.”

County Commissioner Wendy Jacobs also spoke this year of how the state of Durham’s animal shelter has an impact on public health, The N&O reported.

During an October meeting, a group of animal facility architects delivered a sharp review of APS of Durham’s conditions, criticizing its air ventilation system and cage sizes. The review expressed how animal shelters are public spaces and should appear open and inviting.

The group urged the county to build a new shelter for $28 million or to at least fund $2.4 million in short-term repairs.

Considering the county’s other funding needs this year, like making sure people have a roof over their heads and food on their table, a new animal shelter is not at the top of the commissioners’ priority list, Carter said.

“That doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be higher, necessarily,” she said, noting how the state’s eviction moratorium will expire Jan. 31.

“People don’t just lose their homes,” during a pandemic, she said. “They lose a beloved member of their family.”

This story was originally published December 30, 2020 at 12:17 PM.