Last year the animal welfare world underwent an impressive transformation due to the pandemic. One of the major lessons the industry learned is one that Roice-Hurst has prioritized for years—we must focus on the human side of animal sheltering to truly serve the needs of pets.

When we hired a social worker a couple of years ago, we did so knowing she could help connect pet owners to resources beyond the needs of their animals. Additionally, we know that we do better work when we help people keep and care for their pets than when we focus solely on sheltering those animals. We saw this shift take place nationwide as animal shelters worked with human services to serve pet owners throughout the crisis and focused on addressing the root causes of pet homelessness.

Animal welfare organizations also discovered the power of the community as an extension of shelters. We saw that we can put highly adoptable pets (not just puppies and kittens) into foster homes and expand the lifesaving capacity of each shelter beyond the number of kennels it has.

For example, Roice-Hurst had over 100 foster applications come in within a few days of issuing our call last March. That meant our shelter capacity more than doubled without having to lift a hammer! 

At the same time, many shelters took advantage of having fewer animals on site to redeploy staff to other critical functions around the community—offering behavior support for pet owners and fosters, providing resources for owners in crisis, and caring for pets with more intensive behavior and medical cases at the shelter. At Roice-Hurst, we also expanded our pet pantry and our veterinary capacity, which allowed us to serve even more of our community’s pets.

Another positive outcome of the pandemic was that shelters worked together to offer support and share information. At one point, my team and I participated in three Zoom calls a week—a national call focused on how shelters and rescues were adapting operations to the challenges of the pandemic, a regional call with Western Colorado shelters to discuss ways to collaborate and support each other, and a national call for leaders in animal welfare. 

Animal shelters serve a crucial role in caring for and protecting our community’s most vulnerable pets, but they should be a last resort for housing animals. Shelters are stronger and more effective when we work with others in our community to care for pets and to address the factors that lead to abandoned, homeless or abused pets.

Western Colorado is lucky to have a deeply ingrained sense of interconnectedness, which has led to some remarkable collaborations. Local human-focused organizations and animal welfare groups have been creating a nationwide model for human-animal partnerships. That cooperation will ultimately lead to even better outcomes for our community’s pets and for the people who love them.