Heira is an 8-year-old pit bull mix with an endearing squinty gaze and ready smile. The combination suggests that she’s sizing you up then saying, “Just kidding, let’s be friends!” She’s surprisingly chipper, considering her circumstances. In April, her family moved and couldn’t take her, so they surrendered her to the Cleveland Animal Protective League (APL). That’s been her home for the five months since.
When a staff member or volunteer takes her outside, she runs around the play yard — she’s energetic for her age — and splashes in the kiddie pool. But like all shelter dogs, she spends most of her day and all night in a small cell in a kind of prison, where the guards are kind but don’t speak her language, so they can’t explain what she did to end up there or how long she’ll have to stay.
The APL and other shelters are working hard to prevent long stays by keeping more dogs in their homes. But in the meantime, Heira waits.
She is one of millions of dogs languishing in shelters across the country, according to Shelter Animals Count, which gathers data from every state. In 2024, 9% more dogs entered Ohio shelters than left them. That’s more than twice the national average of 4%.
Dogs are arriving at shelters at about the same rate as in years past, said Mindy Naticchioni, shelter administrator at Cuyahoga County Animal Shelter in Valley View. But adoptions are down, which leaves dogs waiting longer. The average length of stay has roughly doubled, from 14-15 days to about 29.
That average includes the small-breed dogs like chihuahuas who tend to get adopted quickly, often within a day or two. Larger dogs — and especially pit bull mixes like Heira — are often waiting months for someone to give them another chance. If they get one at all.
The longer the wait, the greater the toll. Shelter staff members and volunteers do everything they can to mitigate the stress of confinement, but they can’t eliminate it. Stress makes dogs more prone to illness and to behavior that can make them temporarily unavailable for adoption, lengthening their stay (Ohio law requires a 10-day quarantine for any dog that bites a person). Or worse.
Longer stays also lead to overcrowding. At Cleveland APL, the kennels have drop-down doors that can turn one kennel into two smaller ones, increasing the facility’s capacity. But that’s not an easy decision. Less space means more stress.
“We have a behavior team that is monitoring their welfare and looking out for signs that they’re starting to experience strong kennel stress,” said Sharon Harvey, president and CEO of Cleveland APL. The dogs who are really struggling get priority for placement in a foster home, but there aren’t enough of those either.
“We thought there was going to be a break [this year], that things would get back to normal,” said Bruce Campbell, manager of Cleveland’s Division of Animal Care and Control and its kennel, City Dogs. “But it never has. Every time we [adopt out] 10 or 20 dogs, we have one of those days where the animal control officers bring 20 or 30 [new stray or neglected] dogs in.”
The county shelter and the APL have been riding the same rollercoaster.
“We have done everything we can to make adoption very accessible and very affordable,” Harvey said. “We’ve run regular adoption promotions, constantly reduced the adoption fees. We have been marketing our dogs via social media as much as we can. The reality is that’s not driving the response that’s needed.”
To compensate, shelters are expanding their mission.
Skyrocketing costs are driving the dip in adoptions
The pandemic-related shutdowns of 2020 disrupted shelters like everything else, but there was an upside. Millions of people who were stuck at home decided it was a good time to adopt a pet. Demand for shelter dogs suddenly exceeded supply.
“We had a woman drive from North Carolina to adopt a pit bull,” Naticchioni said. “That was the best day ever.”
The problem now is that most people who acquired dogs then still have them and won’t be in the market for another for a while, perhaps 10 years.
“Covid disrupted that natural adoption cycle,” she said, “something none of us were thinking about as we were watching them all leave and seeing our shelters empty.”
The pandemic also disrupted the spaying and neutering programs that help keep pet populations down.
The pandemic is not the only force at work, but it’s related to the other factors that are conspiring to keep shelters crowded.
The cost of pet ownership is up: The pandemic also contributed to a wave of retirements among veterinarians and more vet technicians leaving the business. The resulting shortages have helped drive up the cost of care by more than 60% in a decade.
Pet food prices are up 25% since 2019, according to PetFoodIndustry.com. The costs of doggy daycare and boarding are also rising.
The affordable housing crisis is another factor: The 2024 State of Shelter Pet Adoption Report from pet food company Hill’s cited a survey in which nearly 60% of respondents said that pet-friendly housing options are limited and too expensive.
“Of those who surrendered a pet, 23% cited housing restrictions as a reason for relinquishing,” the report stated. “And of people who weren’t likely to adopt a large breed dog, 26% said their housing would not have allowed them to adopt.”
Late last year, when Campbell was still new in his job, he and his team arrived at the shelter one morning to find a dog tied to the fence with a note attached. “It said, ‘My family can’t afford to take care of me, I’m a good dog, please find me a home,’ that type of thing,” he recalled.
Notes are unusual, but overnight deposits have become common. “Yesterday, somebody left a box of puppies outside in the parking lot,” he said in August. “I think people are making choices of what’s important, and some of those choices involve them being able to have food and pay their utilities versus paying for food for a dog.”
Not coincidentally, “Cats are having their heyday right now,” Harvey said. “We are adopting cats out like crazy. A lot of the reason for that, we believe, is the expense.”
Harvey points to another possible — and ironic — factor in the dip in adoptions: successful messaging from dog advocates.
“One of the things we’ve tried to hammer home year after year after year is, ‘Don’t adopt a pet unless you have the resources and the capacity to commit to the care of that pet for a lifetime,’” she said. “If that’s part of what is stopping people from adopting, then they’re doing exactly what we’ve been asking them to do for years.”
One solution: keeping more dogs in their homes
Not all dogs who end up in shelters have been abandoned. Some are just lost, and shelters are stepping up their efforts to reunite them with their humans when the dog is microchipped or wears an ID tag. CCAS borrowed an idea from courts that have seen better success in reaching people with texts than with voice calls and emails.
“We can just text them and be like, ‘Hey, you won’t be penalized, we’re waiving all of our fees,’” Natachhoni explained. “‘It’s only $20 [for a license]. Oh, you can’t pick up your dog? Can we drive it to you? You can’t get here during our hours? We’ll stay late.’ What can we do to get you reunited with your pet?’ Which then gives us that much-needed cage.”
The shelters and others are also “playing the long game,” as Harvey put it — expanding their mission to include efforts to keep pets in their homes.
Neighborhood Pets in Slavic Village has been a leader in this effort. The nonprofit offers free and low-cost services like veterinary care and a pet food pantry. By the end of June, the pantry had distributed 15,500 pounds of food to 979 Cleveland households, feeding nearly 2,200 pets. And the demand keeps growing.
“Every day we have people coming in to sign up,” said Siobhan Linville, assistant director. “We’re signing up about 100, 125 new people every month.”
Friends of the Cuyahoga County Animal Shelter also offers a monthly pet food pantry. Cleveland APL’s Project CARE (Community Animal Retention Effort) provides emergency food supplies but also medical, behavioral and other services for residents of Cleveland and East Cleveland. Neighborhood Pets and Benjamin Rose, which provides services for seniors, are collaborating on a program to help clients with pets keep up with their care in their homes.
According to the State of Shelter Pet Adoption Report, “Ninety-four percent of pet owners considering relinquishment kept their pet after receiving support.”
Shaming doesn’t help
To succeed in the long term, programs will need more than donations, said Becca Britton, founder and director of Neighborhood Pets. They need to keep working to dispel the myths that many dog lovers have about how dogs end up in shelters. She hates the memes that circulate on social media, implying that all shelter dogs were tossed aside by unfeeling owners who gave up or lost interest or replaced an old dog with a new puppy.
Every day, Britton said, she and the Neighborhood Pets team sees the lengths clients will go to to feed and care for their pets — walking miles or riding paratransit for a 10-minute visit, knowing they’ll have to wait an hour or more for a ride home. One client rides four miles in a motorized wheelchair. After one visit this summer on a scorching hot day, the staff got him an Uber ride home.
“It’s not just going out of their way, it’s like suffering themselves in order to get what they need for their pets,” Britton said. “That’s the stuff that we see, which is why it’s hard to wrap my head around all of the comments I see on social media about how people suck.”
Harvey agrees, but also wants dog owners who are struggling to exhaust every option before surrendering a dog, even for legitimate reasons.
“In my opinion, there’s nobody better to rehome a pet than that pet’s own owner who knows them, and should be very invested in finding them a wonderful new family,” she said. The web site Home to Home makes that easier.
“The one living being that has no say in that transaction is that dog, who has no idea that the reason he or she has just lost their family is because they don’t have enough money in their checking account,” Harvey said. “So if we can help to bridge that gap and keep those dogs and cats in homes and not in here, we have better capacity to bring the ones in who really need to be here.”
Frank W. Lewis is a volunteer dog-walker at Cuyahoga County Animal Shelter.
If your dog is missing, or you want to adopt, here’s where to look
Cleveland Animal Protective League
1729 Willey Ave., Cleveland
216-771-4616
clevelandapl.org
The APL investigates reports of animal cruelty and neglect for cities in Cuyahoga County that don’t have their own animal control departments. It accepts surrendered pets by appointment only. Dogs, cats and other small animals are available for adoption.
Cleveland City Kennel
9203 Detroit Ave., Cleveland
216-664-3476
Cleveland City Kennel is part of the city’s Division of Animal Care and Control. The staff responds to animal-related reports, including stray and neglected dogs. The kennel does not accept owner surrenders. City Dogs is the kennel’s adoption program.
Cuyahoga County Animal Shelter
9500 Sweet Valley Dr., Valley View
216-525-7877
cuyahogadogs.com
CCAS picks up and cares for stray dogs from cities that do not have their own kennels. It does not accept owner surrenders. Dogs that are not reclaimed by owners are made available for adoption. CCAS is also the local authority for dog licenses, which are required by state law.
