TRAVERSE CITY — Right now, more pets are being returned to the Cherryland Humane Society’s shelter than are being adopted.
This local trend mimics a national one that Naomi Lawson-Pobuda, Cherryland’s communications and marketing manager, said she heard about at a conference she attended in New Orleans last year.
“We had noticed an uptick in owner surrenders in general,” she said. “Over the last year, a number of us had traveled to other states for continuing education conferences and we were like, ‘Oh, this isn’t just us, this is everywhere.’”
The No. 1 reason they’ve seen pets returned to their care is housing, Lawson-Pobuda said.
“You know it’s hard to find a place to live here anyways that’s affordable, so what are you going to do? Face homelessness or keep your family pet? There have been people that have been found living in their cars with their pets because they do not want to give them up,” she said.
Many rentals and apartment complexes in town do not allow pets, or, if they do, they have breed limits, she said.
In Traverse City, housing is a rare commodity. According to data from Housing North, approximately 43.3 percent of renter households in northern Lower Michigan are “cost-burdened,” meaning that they spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing.
The same report indicates 20 percent of renters in the region are actually “severely cost-burdened,” which means they spend more than half of their income on housing each month.
The trickle-down effects result in increased rates of homelessness in Traverse City and, now, the Humane Society reaching near-capacity levels.
Nationally, the American database site Shelter Animals Count shows, in 2023, 748,395 pets were relinquished by their owners and placed within the shelter system.
In Grand Traverse County, the database shows there were 630 intakes last year. Lawson-Pobuda said they had 398 adoptions during the same time period.
But, she noted, that this isn’t just a challenge that they’re facing at Cherryland.
“We do share a building with [Grand Traverse County] Animal Control,” she said. “So, if a dog’s brought in as a stray, they come to this building too and we take care of them, and they’re facing the same thing.”
On a poster next to the ready-to-adopt photos for Cherryland’s dogs, Animal Control displayed photos of five dogs in their care that are ready for adoption.
Lawson-Pobuda said the sign was a new addition because, in years past, Animal Control would bring the animals that were ready for adoption next door to Cherryland.
With the increase in numbers, they’ve tried adopting directly from Animal Control now.
When nearly every kennel is full, Lawson-Pobuda said it can be stressful for both humans and animals.
As of Friday afternoon, she said they were “pretty close to full” in terms of their capacity. On the bright side, she added that they’re lucky to still be seeing adoptions.
There are 21 dogs and 27 cats available for adoption immediately, she said.
This time of year, she said there also are a few pets that are returned after being given to someone as a holiday gift that was not-so-well received.
“You can’t really expect somebody to want to care for something as a present,” she said. “You have to let them make that decision themselves.”
Lawson-Pobuda also has noticed that many of the dogs and cats that have been dropped off are between 2 and 3 years old, which indicates that they were born during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s only a speculation, but we also think that COVID and people returning to the office has something to do with it because we do see animals – dogs especially – that are around the same age,” she said. “But the majority of it I will say is housing, which is really sad.”
At the conference, she went to a class about keeping families with their pets in the difficult housing climate.
“We really wish that people would have a little bit more flexibility,” she said. “I really wish that we had like a foster situation here, that’s just like an interim space where people’s animals could stay for a couple months until they could find some housing that will accept their animals instead of being under pressure.”
Many apartments also have breed restrictions, especially for dogs.
That’s a big reason why the majority of the dogs they currently have are pitbull mixes.
“People have this idea in their head of what these kind of dogs are, when that’s not true at all,” she said. “We’ve had people come and fill out applications for a dog that they’ve met and they’re so excited and they bonded but the landlord says, ‘Oh, no pitbulls. No Rottweilers.’ And even though that dog is like good with kids, (and) with other dogs, but they’re kind of just saying ‘Nope.’”
As a “pitty-mix” mom herself to Valentine, Lawson-Pobuda said she wishes that people would see how sweet and gentle these dogs are and not associate them with stereotypes.
“So, we would love, in our dreams, that people would get rid of those breed restrictions,” she said.
One of those pitty-mixes that they currently have in their care, 3-year-old Ziggy, came from a rescue mission out of the Detroit dog-fighting scene in partnership with the non-profit Barknation.
Ziggy has a few scars scattered over his body and face from before his rescue, but didn’t bark at a single human or car during his early afternoon walk outside.
Lawson-Pobuda said another downside to receiving a lot of local owner surrenders is that they don’t have as much room for dogs like Ziggy.
Cherryland Humane Society is a no-kill shelter. In many bigger cities with worse overcrowding problems, that’s not always the case, she said.
A goal of theirs is to continue rescuing dogs from shelters in bigger Michigan cities, including Ann Arbor, Detroit and Grand Rapids, and bring them up to Cherryland.
Flexibility is key to finding solutions to the increase in pet surrenders, Lawson-Pobuda said.
“I mean, in our dreams we would really hope that landlords, apartment complexes would not only be a little more flexible with allowing dogs and cats, but also limit the breed restrictions because I think there are some stereotypes out there about pitty-mixes,” she said. “But, I mean anywhere you go, that’s what you see a lot of in shelters.”