Reflecting on 2024...
As I reflect back on the year that was 2024, I feel exhausted. Not just tired… but a deep in my soul weariness from the past year.
When I spoke to classrooms full of bright-eyed kids in 2019, I would tell them that animal welfare was on an incredible trajectory. It felt like an issue that could be solved in our lifetime. Animal shelters and Dog Pounds, as we knew them, would be a thing of the past. We would explain animal shelters to our grandchildren like we try to explain rotary phones and VHS tapes. That was my hope…
Then 2020 happened. At first, it felt like a blessing. Shelters throughout the United States were literally emptied of every last dog and cat. It was eerie walking through the halls of our shelter with a single dog barking in our once crowded shelter.
In 2019, a dog in a shelter throughout the United States would wait 36 days. Fast forward to 2024, a dog entering a shelter now spends an average of 57 days waiting for a family to give them a forever home. Three agonizing weeks longer. That restricts the available space to help animals in need and impacts both the physical and mental health of shelter dogs.
Why is this happening? We are truly dealing with a mental health crisis that is resulting in more animals being seized by our humane officers. In 2019, our part-time humane officer seized 47 animals. Last year, the three members of our humane team responded to 612 reports of animal cruelty and/or neglect and seized 1,304 animals from conditions you can’t even begin to imagine.
Animals coming from these circumstances are often traumatized by their circumstances and suffering from a wide range of health concerns. It takes our incredible staff and volunteers weeks if not months of heart-aching and back-breaking work to help these animals recover, let alone, be ready to find forever homes. These cases often test us and push us beyond our physical and emotional limits.
It is not all doom and gloom. Our passionate staff are supported by over 200 wonderful volunteers, dozens of foster homes, a growing network of rescues, thousands of awesome adopters ready to take an animal into their homes and their hearts, and donors who make all our life-saving work possible. We were able to find homes for 4,359 animals more than 30 days faster than the national average. Our foster families provided temporary homes and tons of TLC for 1,039 pets. We opened up space to help animals from areas impacted by hurricanes Helene and Milton.
Despite the aches and pains of the grueling work taking care of hundreds of animals each and every day… despite all the awful things I have had to crawl through or climb up to rescue an animal… despite the emotional rollercoaster of comforting a dying cat that was hit by a car in the morning followed by hugging an adopter who has given a favorite dog a second chance in the afternoon… despite all of that, I love the work we do at Friendship. My staff and volunteers, fosters and adopters, and those who open up their checkbooks to keep our doors open – inspire me to get up every morning and start the work all over again.