New Pets, New Normal

The amount of cat and dog adoptions that we have seen at Animal Care Sanctuary so far this year has been wonderfully staggering. These hundreds of adoptions are the end goals of our mission – to provide happy forever homes to animals. With your help, we have saved thousands of animals from terrible fates and matched families with their own treasured new members.

While there are a variety of good reasons that adoptions this year have been higher than ever, we recognize that there is a gigantic not-so-good reason – COVID-19. With parents stuck at home waiting to go back to work along with their children who could no longer go to school or see their friends, the obvious solution to fill that void was adopting a pet.

And we are so thankful that so many families took that route! But like you’ve probably heard from your own parents (or even likely have said as a parent to your own kids) when broaching the idea of adopting a canine or feline friend – having a pet is a long-term commitment. You may have plenty of time for it right now, but as quarantines lift and businesses reopen, the newest member of your family might quickly find itself with plenty of alone time.

While our coronavirus downtime likely gave us ample time to house train, exercise and play with our new pets, as we regain our regular daily lives and get back into our routines, time will have to be set aside for your furry friend to give it healthy affection and exercise.

They also need to get used to being apart from you. If you’ve been quarantining, your pet has had near unlimited contact with you – and they think that’s normal. They don’t know where you’re going and why you’re gone so long when you go to work. So work on separating yourself from your pet for set chunks of time, even if it’s for quick runs to the store, or watching TV in a separate room – just small things to get it used to not being around you all the time.

These are uncertain times for everyone, and our pets give us smiles, stability and optimism through all of that. So when things go back to our “normal” your new furry family members need to know that you’ll always come back and love them like they loved you through this crisis.