During the Global Pandemic people were confined to their homes with little to no emotional outlets. This led to the purchasing of hundreds of thousands of pets, mainly dogs. Owners were very happy with their pets as they had someone to keep them happy and entertained during lockdown.
After restrictions were lifted pet owners were able to get back to their day-to-day lives. This left little time to be spent looking after their pets and resulted in many pet owners having to give their pets to different shelters across Ontario. “Covid Dogs”, as they are called, have become a big issue in London and Middlesex County. These dogs have never properly been introduced to this ever-changing world.
“They’re not used to people, noises, other animals a lot of the time, and then when they are being re-socialized into the world they are not used to that”.
Marrissa Sitts is the Animal Health Director at the Humane Society London & Middlesex. Marrissa has been with HSLM for a year and a half and is still seeing the effects of the dogs that were purchased during lockdown.
“I Can definitely see where that has had a large influx, especially for dogs I would say. Were seeing a large amount of large bread animals between one and three years old” Marrissa said. “We are seeing a lack of socialization because people were in their houses, their dogs were staying inside with them just like everyone was advised to”.
There is currently a waiting list for animals to enter Humane Society. They have the capacity for 175 pets and are currently averaging 215 animals at their facility. They are currently working on budling a new facility that could house up to 400 different animals while giving them more space to learn and adapt. Marrissa and the team at HSLM are very thrilled with this plan and hope it can help a lot of animals get the emotional and medical support they need.
“We are are very very excited, the biggest point is the vet clinic which we don’t have here. We don’t have an onsite vet clinic, we do have a great team of registered vet techs and we do work with partnered clinics around the facility, but for 200 animals that’s a lot of transportation” Marrissa said. “And if you have animals you know that it can be difficult to get appointments for your pets currently, So that is going to be a huge game changer for us”.
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