During the COVID-19 quarantine, people have not been able to have their typical companionships with friends and loved ones. Instead, people have turned to furry friends to help fill the void.
Animal shelter fosters and adoptions have increased across the country, and in Hattiesburg, the trend has been similar.
For Southern Pines Animal Shelter in Hattiesburg, the trend has helped find fosters and get animals adopted.
“We have actually seen an increase since so many people are home right now,” Amanda Paris, shelter director, said. “It’s a really good time for people to bring a new animal into their home since they get to spend a lot of time with them. We are doing everything curbside. You just make an appointment online. You can show up without an appointment, although we prefer you to have one. We’ll bring the animals to your vehicle, and (you) decide who you want to take home.”
Typically, Southern Pines has anywhere between 100 to 200 animals on the property that could be either fostered or adopted. That number has dropped to as low as five during the pandemic. But Southern Pines was forced to stop taking in animals in order to prevent a possible spread of the virus and instead used social media to gain attention.
“For a month and a half, we didn’t do any intakes just to protect our staff and prevent overcrowding,” Paris explained. “We are opening intakes on a limited basis now, especially in emergency or dire situations. We’re prioritizing those appointments in Hattiesburg city limits and in Forrest County.
“We had noticed people are a lot more active on social media right now. We have done a lot on social media to boost engagements to get involved with shelter animals. As far as curbside, we are trying to be really careful and keep people safe, but we still want to get the animals out of here. The animal doesn’t go away because of the pandemic, so we have been trying to be creative but keep everybody safe and healthy.”
Like Southern Pines, the Hub City Humane Society, also in Hattiesburg, saw a spike in adoptions and fosters just before they were forced to close their doors to the public.
On a monthly basis, the Humane Society will have over 50 dogs in foster homes but currently has over 150 dogs and cats in foster homes until the end of May.
Prior to the closure, the humane society required people to have appointments, which actually increased fosters and adoptions, according to officials.
“Before this all started, right as it was getting started, we had to close just to by appointment only,” board member Sally Crane said. “People had to know what they wanted. People couldn’t walk around or anything like that, so people coming were interested in adopting that day or fostering. Many were already preapproved, so that played a big part in it.
“Another thing was people were looking for companionship. Once the actual stay-at-home order happened, we had to close down completely. We weren’t able to place any fosters or have any adoptions at all.”
Southern Pines was able to keep its doors open throughout the pandemic, and it, fortunately, did not have to lay off its employees.
“We haven’t done any layoffs,” Paris said. “We did get the payroll protection grant, so we are able to keep all of our staff employed and paid, so we are very lucky in that regard. We have cut our hours a little bit for staff, but we have actually increased the number of hours that we are open just so we can continue to get animals out. Our big concern was human safety, but also, we were worried about how this would impact our animal population, and we didn’t want to limit our ability to get animals out of here. We actually open from 12-6 p.m. every day of the week.”
The humane society has also started to slowly reopen its doors for take-ins and appointments.
“During the pandemic, we were staff only,” Crane said. “Now, we are doing appointments and drop-offs as far as surrendering animals, and if Petal or Lamar County needs animal control, then we do those, too. Adoptions and fostering are by appointment only so that we can make sure that we limit the exposure to our staff and to our community also.
“We reopened the beginning of this week. We have slowly started accepting animals again through appointment only. We are trying to get into the role of it slowly. We have to get everything back in order.”
Both organizations are still in need of supplies such as bleach, detergent, dish soap and towels as well as monetary donations.
However, Southern Pines has been able to help distribute extra pet food to families that can’t afford to feed their pets through a partnership with GreaterGood, a nonprofit organization that donates pet supplies.
“We have a relationship with GreaterGood,” Paris said. “We had a long-standing relationship with them. They support us whenever there is a natural disaster or a situation like this where shelters might be impacted. They have been great. They wanted to know what they could do to help and if they could send us food, and we said absolutely.”
GreaterGood and Southern Pines have been able to set up a pet food bank at the Edwards Street Fellowship Center, 1919 Edwards St. in Hattiesburg, for dog and cat food. Pet food bank eligibility is based on household income and serves residents of Covington, Forrest, Jasper, Jefferson Davis, Jones, Lamar and Wayne counties.
“They sent us several thousand pounds of dog and cat food for us to use for emergency relief,” Paris said. “If a person comes to us and they can’t keep their pet because they can’t afford pet food right now, we have supplies thanks to GreaterGood that they can keep for free. We have distributed that to Edwards Street Mission. They have received some of that food along with some other animal welfare organizations around the state. If there was a shelter that saw a decrease in their donations of food and needed to feed their population, then we would give it to them, too.”
Southern Pines Animal Shelter and the Hub City Humane Society have been fortunate to see the local increase in adoptions and fosters, but each group has still had their share of difficulties.
Donations of supplies as well as funds have also dropped for both shelters during the pandemic, according to staffers.
“We did need supplies for a while with everybody staying at home in the beginning,” Crane said. “Money donations have dropped off. We are doing our best to keep going. We definitely need a lot of more monetary donations just to keep paying our staff. We are putting everything we have into that. We are having a huge drop-off as far as donations go because a lot of people are out of work.”
Like Crane, Paris understands the hardships people have faced during the pandemic due to economic difficulties and while trying to remain safe.
“It’s tricky because I think a lot more people are out of work, so it’s a little bit more difficult,” Paris said. “We have seen donations slow a lot, but we are still in need of all of our general supplies. We know it’s kind of tricky because we don’t want to ask people to get out and expose themselves. We have an Amazon Wishlist, which makes it really easy to donate, and that’s on our website. We also have a donation portal on their website where people can make monetary donations.”
