When the street cats of Chicago’s Hyde Park get out of control, Frances Spaltro’s neighbors know they can call her for help. She shuttles the cats to foster homes, but there aren’t enough for all the strays, which often aren’t strays at all — just pets looking for their homes and the owners that turned them outside.
During the worst days of the summer, when Chicago’s oppressive heat drove abandoned animals to court strangers for food, water, and air conditioning, Spaltro’s rescue assisted 35 homeless cats from a neighborhood of fewer than 30,000 residents. One volunteer from Spaltro’s Hyde Park Cats rescue keeps foster homes for six felines.
That story has played out across the country. Not too long ago, Americans opened their homes to a historic number of pets, a development comparable to the post-World War II baby boom in terms of its size. More than 23 million U.S. households — nearly one in five nationwide — have adopted a pet during the coronavirus pandemic, according to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
President Biden even adopted two pets: a dog, Major, and cat, Willow. While most of those animals have remained with their adopters, animal welfare organizations are now scrambling to help some pet owners provide for their cats and dogs — or come up with the resources to care for animals given up under economic duress — lest some owners face an impossible decision: Surrender or abandon their animals so they can keep themselves and their human families afloat.
Thirty-five percent of pet owners in September said they were concerned about the expense of having a pet in the current economy, according to data from the American Pet Products Association trade group. Of those, half said they may have to give up their pet.
Veterinary and shelter officials say it is a troubling sign about the future of American pet ownership. Middle- and upper-class households are spoiling their companions with new toys, top-shelf foods and luxurious day care and boarding accommodations. Meanwhile, pet adoption for lower-income households is slipping out of reach. (SOURCE)
