‘She’s certainly made my life happier’

The number of people seeking to foster and adopt pets boomed during the pandemic.

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Alice Brunner and her dog, Frankie.

Alice Brunner and her dog, Frankie.

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Alice Brunner’s dog, Frankie, hops onto her lap as if the small canine holds the deed to the property.

Brunner doesn’t even attempt to feign disapproval. She loves the pup.

“She’s certainly made my life happier and dispels a lot of gloom on gloomy days,” said the retired stockbroker, who lives by herself in Old Town and adopted the shelter pup from PAWS Chicago. 

The need for cuddly, loving moments is helping to drive a boom in people seeking to foster or adopt a pet during the pandemic.

“A lot of single people working from home wanted a companion,” said Katie Sershon, a volunteer with PAWS. “It provides structure and purpose to take care of something else, you’ve got to get up and keep a routine.”

But demand outpaced supply at many shelters in the area. The stacked rows of cages that line the picture windows of the Anti-Cruelty Society’s Near North Side headquarters were nearly empty for the first time in a long time.

“We call it the ‘Weeping Window’ because people walk by and look so sad looking at the caged dogs that need a home,” said Lydia Krupinski, chief programs officer at The Anti-Cruelty Society.

Cuteness alone doesn’t account for the increased interest.

Foster applications skyrocketed in the spring when shelters sounded alarms over social media requesting help in freeing up kennel space to allow for an expected rush to care for pets whose owners were hospitalized or otherwise struggling because of the coronavirus. 

People stepped up. Applications increased exponentially at many area shelters. The Anti-Cruelty Society placed 1,256 pets in foster care from March through November, a 35% increase from the 928 pets placed a year earlier.

Jonathan Corvin-Blackburn fostered a cat named Blep who jumps on his desk during video conference calls and licks his nose.

Blep the cat with Jonathan Corvin-Blackburn.

Blep the cat with Jonathan Corvin-Blackburn.

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“Thankfully, my colleagues think she’s cute,” said Corvin-Blackburn, 34, a product designer at Grubhub who lives by himself in Uptown. He couldn’t bear to part with his Anti-Cruelty foster pet, so he adopted. 

The tidal wave of pets entering shelters never materialized.

In fact, fewer animals were being given up, probably because people who were hospitalized leaned on relatives for help. And far fewer people moved during the pandemic, eliminating encounters with new landlords who don’t allow pets, according to several area rescue shelters.

One winner in the decrease in pets being given up to shelters: the dozens of pit bull mixes at the city’s Animal Care and Control facility. The dogs have historically been hard to place in new homes due to long-standing but inaccurate biases against the dogs for being aggressive, Animal Care spokeswoman Jenny Schlueter said.

“With less animals to compete against for love, more of those dogs are finding a home,” Schlueter said.

“We work hard to change perceptions about these dogs. We post pictures to social media of the dogs in holiday pajamas and sweaters and even tutus to show they are cute, loving dogs,” she said.

Caitlyn Moravecek adopted one of those pit bull mixes recently, but wishes she could have taken them all home.

“There’s such a poor stigma on these dogs, and we wanted to help change that,” said Moravecek, 24, who lives with her fiancé in Riverside. “And we were feeling the isolation of the pandemic and wanted to have a four-legged friend around.”

Adoptions, despite increased interest, have dipped at many area shelters.

Krupinski attributes the dip to how the pandemic has changed the adoption process. Normally completed in under an hour in person, an adoption can now drag on for days due to incorrectly filled out online forms and follow-up calls that regularly result in phone tag.

She hopes interest in rescue animals remains strong because shelters are again bracing for an uptick in pets due to a potential holiday surge of COVID-19 cases and a bubbling eviction crisis.

“We still need all the help we can get,” she said.

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