Many animals in Northwest Arkansas finding homes during pandemic, bypassing shelters

Pets in Northwest Arkansas are finding homes without setting paw in a shelter, and some animal services departments say they're reconsidering how they operated before the pandemic.

In Fayetteville, staff members have been helping reunite an animal with its owner or find a new home, said Justine Lentz, animal services superintendent.

On Thursday, the shelter had two cats ready for adoption and one dog, with two more dogs to become available soon and a litter of kittens too young to adopt. The shelter usually had about 20 available cats and 20 dogs before the pandemic, Lentz said.

Usual procedure if someone finds an animal is to call the shelter and have an animal control officer pick it up or to drop it off at the shelter. Workers been asking residents to hold the animal, if they can, and post pictures to social media such as Facebook or Nextdoor, Lentz said.

Her staff also has been working in the background, scoping lost and found websites and fielding phone calls to connect lost pets with their owners, she said. It's proven to be a successful method that the shelter hopes to continue, Lentz said.

Adoptions have happened by appointment only, with the door locked to volunteers and visitors since March. The shelter is trying to keep its animal population as low as possible. That way, if a staff member becomes infected with covid-19 and the shelter has to move its animals, there would only be a few, Lentz said. The shelter also wants to leave enough space in case more owners surrender pets for whatever reason, she said.

Lentz said the shelter will provide food and medicine and get an animal spayed or neutered if someone is willing to keep an eye on it until it finds a home. The shelter has waived its usual adoption fees of $20 for cats and $30 or $60 for dogs.

"In the past, it was kind of a knee-jerk reaction. Like, 'Oh I found this pet I should immediately have someone come pick it up, or I should immediately turn it in,'" she said. "Sometimes, that is the best thing to do. We've just found when it comes to healthy, friendly animals, especially dogs, they've got an owner out there. It's just a matter of finding them."

A movement afoot

David Buff was walking Monday with his family near Salem Road and Yale Street, north of Wedington Drive in Fayetteville, when they came across a heeler mix with a collar but no tags. The dog seemed happy and healthy and clearly had an owner, Buff said.

"We didn't know what to do with her," he said. "We didn't want her to run out to the street and get hit."

Buff called Fayetteville Animal Services. A staff member suggested the family keep the dog until the owner could be found. Buff sent photos to the staff and posted them on social media.

By 8 a.m. the next day, the owner called animal services to see if anyone had reported finding a heeler mix in the same area. The shelter contacted Buff, and everyone met up at the nearby Iams Dog Park at Bryce Davis Park.

The dog, whose name is Ava, made it back home. Buff said his two children, ages 11 and 7, had started calling her "Sweetie." The heeler got along great with the family's Jack Russell-beagle mix.

"We were about ready to adopt it, it was so cute," Buff said.

Buff said he could see how having people hold on to lost pets for a few days, rather than immediately taking them to a shelter, could work better. Ava got to spend the night in a family's apartment, rather than in a shelter cage, and was quickly reunited with her own family.

The idea of shelter diversion isn't a new one, but more shelters across the country have been finding ways to keep their populations low during the pandemic, said Jim Tedford, president and chief executive officer of the Association for Animal Welfare Advancement, a national animal care advocacy organization. As a result, shelters are figuring out they could have taken a more community-centric approach all along and will likely keep doing so in the future, he said.

Like many workplaces, shelters are trying to limit the number of staff working on site, and with fewer animals fewer people have to come in, which reduces the potential of spreading covid-19, Tedford said. Without volunteers on hand, Northwest Arkansas shelters have retained staff to cover the workload.

Animals also benefit from a reduced population. Animals can come from anywhere and have any number of undiagnosed conditions that can spread to the higher the population in a shelter, he said.

"Even in the finest, most beautifully run animal shelter in the world, animals are still better off and happier in a home," Tedford said.

Communities have been responding, Tedford said. As long as a local shelter continues to keep a log of reported animals and takes in ones that need care residents can't provide, neighborhoods can essentially function as shelters, he said.

"A lot of organizations are thinking if this works during a crisis like this, why can't it work all the time?" Tedford said. "There is a bit of a movement afoot."

Being good neighbors

It seems people are adopting more during the pandemic, plus adoptions generally increase this time of year, said Bud Norman, Rogers animal shelter director. That, and intakes have gone down. The shelter had close to 100 adoptable animals at the onset of the pandemic, and now has about 40 listed on Petfinder.

Animal control officers still pick up animals in the city, but the number of calls has gone down, Norman said. The shelter's new system of having adoptions through appointment, with paperwork and approval ready by the time the prospective adopter shows up, has been a success, he said.

"It works better for the customer and the animal and for us," he said.

Residents have stepped up to help keep the population at Springdale's animal shelter low, said Courtney Kremer, animal services director. The shelter has about 40 animals, which is about half its capacity. There were 11 dogs Thursday, with the rest being cats and kittens. People have been receptive to holding onto dogs they find, but litters of kittens are a bigger ask. The shelter doesn't expect people to take care of litters or injured animals, Kremer said.

Staff members also have been surfing postings of lost and found animals online, trying to help make matches, Kremer said. Oftentimes, residents take matters into their own hands and connect with each other, which helps lift the burden on the shelter, she said.

"It's been super helpful with people being proactive and being good neighbors," Kremer said.