New York City animal shelters are overcrowded with dogs, and fewer individuals are turning up to adopt them, according to Animal Care Centers of NYC (ACC).
The corporation said that they are still battling the overpopulation that has afflicted them ever since the number of pets returned increased during the adoption boom of the Covid pandemic. However, agency spokesman Katy Hansen clarified in an interview that the issue isn’t that an abnormally high number of New Yorkers are giving up their dogs – adoptions are drastically declining instead.
Approximately 700 dogs were adopted every quarter from ACC shelters in 2018. That number fell to 180 dogs every quarter in 2020. 311 canines were adopted in the first quarter of this year, which is less than half of the pre-pandemic rate.
According to Hansen, the percentage of dogs placed in ACC shelters (which includes adoptions, pet return to owners, and transfer to other facilities) was 93% in 2018, but it is now just 88%. Dogs who are not adopted are euthanized: 4,322 dogs, cats, rabbits, and other creatures were put to death last year, according to ACC figures.
“We’re completely overpopulated with dogs,” Hansen said, as reported by Gothamist. “We have dogs in cages in the hallways, in offices, in every nook and cranny that we can find.”
A major contributing factor to the decline in adoptions, according to Aurora Velazquez, regional director of Best Friends Animal Society, a nationwide network of no-kill shelters, is the high expense of pet ownership.
In 2023, MarketWatch ranked New York as the second most costly state in which to buy a dog – little more than $3,000. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that there has been a roughly 6% rise in veterinary services over the last year.
“They can’t afford to have a pet, so people are hesitant to make that commitment now through adoptions,” Hansen claimed.
Housing is a significant additional concern; according to the publication, the primary cause of animals being returned to shelters was the high cost of living. While many rental flats allow cats, Hansen pointed out that finding ones that allow dogs might be more difficult.
According to Alexander Craig, a spokesman for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, behavioral and medical problems cause animals to remain at the shelter for extended periods of time. The likelihood that a pet may become ill and lose its adoption potential increases with the length of time it spends in an overcrowded intake facility, therefore exacerbating the situation.
