Many Idaho animal shelters are operating at full capacity
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POCATELLO — As summer draws to a close, many animal shelters in Idaho are operating at full capacity.
While there’s no state official or agency that regulates animal shelters in Idaho, facilities that are normally only for surrendered animals have had to take on stray animals to meet the demand.
“We have shelters from other parts of the area asking if we could take some of their dogs because they’re so full,” said Romi Frizzell, Director of Operations for the Snake River Animal Shelter.
Snake River, a non-profit rescue facility, has a waitlist to surrender roughly 120 dogs.
“For every one dog we get out, four or five dogs are added to our wait list,” Frizzell said. “It’s never going to get below 100 at this rate.”
A municipal shelter that’s operating over its full capacity is the Blackfoot Animal Shelter.
“I would feel comfortable saying just about every shelter in Idaho is full,” said Amanda Cevering, Executive Director of the Blackfoot Animal Shelter.
This is a problem that has been getting worse since the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Sarah Moore, Administrative Assistant for the Pocatello Animal Shelter, which is also operating at full capacity.
“There was a big movement when the pandemic first started of clearing the shelters,” Moore said. “A lot of people were home a lot so a lot of people got pets. Now shelters are just filling up more and more and more.”
Neither the Blackfoot nor the Pocatello Animal Shelter is accepting surrendered animals. As of Friday, the Blackfoot Shelter was holding about 48 dogs and over 40 cats. The Pocatello Shelter is holding 63 cats, 58 dogs, two guinea pigs, 59 kittens, 19 puppies and two rabbits – a grand total of 203 animals.
“This is the first year in my 20 years here that we’ve had to kennel dogs in travel kennels on the floor of our shelter,” said Cevering.
They’ve also had to kennel cats together and small dogs together as well. They don’t kennel big dogs together to avoid “anything going wrong,” Cevering said.
Despite this, people are still trying to surrender their animals. Cevering said that on Sept. 7, the Blackfoot Animal Shelter received 23 calls from people trying to release their animals.
Two of the main reasons why Frizzell said this is happening is because of housing – meaning lack of access to affordable housing or people moving somewhere where the landlord won’t allow pets. Another reason is people have allergies or medical situations that prevent them from taking care of their animal.
While Frizzell mentioned mental health benefits to taking care of an animal, people who don’t know if they’re ready to adopt a cat or dog shouldn’t because it’s a lifelong commitment.
“I feel like someone should be 100% sure that they’re ready for an animal because that not-sure factor usually brings the dog back,” she said.
Frizzell said people looking to surrender their animal because of behavioral issues could possibly fix those issues by putting the work in. Just because an animal owner is on the waitlist to surrender their animal doesn’t mean they have to. They could change their mind, and they’ve called people who have done just that.
“We contacted a few people yesterday that changed their mind or they were able to rehome (their animal) before we call them,” Frizzell said.
Animal shelter officials agree that the best way to get the number of animals in their shelters down is for people to spay or neuter their pets. That can help keep numbers down and animals out of lonely shelters.
“It’s better to have the six hours in the evening you’re home with your pet than to have them in the shelter,” Moore said.