New London animal shelter and others struggle with hoarding cases, surrendered pets

Oct. 6—NEW LONDON — On a red bench inside the city's animal control facility on Chester Street last week sat four large bags of adult dog food, donations dropped off by residents after the department made a plea to help fill its larders.

The shelter building, whose tri-town staff also serves Waterford and East Lyme, on Wednesday housed 14 adult dogs spread out among 24 kennels, along with 12 cats, two friendly rats and a rabbit contently staring into space. Another eight puppies are in foster care and will soon be eligible for adoption.

New London Animal Control Officer Tonya Kloiber said while the facility has several open kennels, as recently as last month the shelter had 23 adult dogs in its care, including several taken in after a massive canine hoarding case in Wallingford.

But while the prospect of another hoarding case is concerning, it's the constant stream of abandoned pets that's more worrisome to Kloiber.

"There's an ongoing crisis affecting shelters across the country where we're seeing more pets being dropped off because of a poor economy," Kloiber said. "At the same time, we're seeing adoptions slow down for the same reason."

Kloiber said a volatile housing market led to pet owners in some cases moving to smaller residences — or becoming homeless — and no longer being able to support a pet. At the same time, households who would have taken in a shelter animals just a few years ago, now can't afford to do so.

"We have a 12-pound rat terrier who's super-friendly and playful that in the past would have been adopted right away," she said. "But in a week, we've only gotten one call."

The influx of new dogs and the adoption slowdown translates to the facility going through its food supply faster than usual, a situation that prompted a recent Facebook request for donated kibble.

She said the COVID-19 pandemic compounded the problem.

"We saw a lot of those 'COVID puppies,' dogs bought when people were home all day and never learned to socialize outside of their owners," Kloiber said. "Then the owners went back to work and those dogs began acting out and owners gave them up. But it can be hard getting those 3- and 4-year-old dogs adopted because they're skittish."

Hoarding cases sent ripples locally

The facility's kennels on Wednesday housed a mix of dogs, including several pit bull mixes, an enormous St. Bernard, a bulldog and a pair of sheltie mixes, Crosby and Sidney, who were among the six originally taken in by the shelter last month after 37 dogs were rescued from Wallingford.

"It was basically a puppy farm," Kloiber said. "They had no real human contact and were nervous and not housebroken."

The Wallingford dogs were found living in unsanitary conditions in a garage and voluntarily taken in by municipal shelters in New London, Meriden, North Haven and East Haven.

"We've had three large-scale seizures in the state in the last three months in which we've taken in animals," Kloiber said. "One in Coventry involved 97 animals and another on Westport, though in that case the dogs are being held as evidence and aren't adoptable."

Other hoarding cases in the northeast section of the state are affecting the Norwich Animal Control facility at Mohegan Park. The Norwich shelter is overseen by the Northeast Connecticut Council of Governments (NECCOG) which oversees a 22-town area and operates a shelter in Dayville.

NECCOG Animal Control Program Coordinator Jennifer Hutchins said three animal hoarding cases in the area since July resulted in the roughly 125 animals being rescued.

In order to make room for some of the rescued pets in the Dayville facility, the Norwich site is being used as an overflow location, since the northeast shelter currently has no room for any surrendered animals.

"And we do get calls about surrendered animals daily," Hutchins said.

Kloiber said her facility also takes in animals that have been simply abandoned, like the two rats, Templeton and Remy, who were found inside a cardboard box in Mitchell Woods and now poke their heads out from a large cage to receive banana puff treats and head scratches.

Stretching dollars through outreach

Kloiber said while the New London facility is not a "no-kill" shelter, staff go to extraordinary lengths to get their furry charges adopted. She said the facility has about a 91% adoption success rate in any given year.

"If we do euthanize, it's for temperament or aggression issues," she said. "We work closely with larger animal rescue agencies, like the Humane Society, which have a wider social media audience and can get the word out about our adoptable pets to a larger number of people."

While the facility receives operating funds from the towns it serves, that funding can quickly evaporate depending on the number of animals it serves in a given year.

"So, we frequently reach out to the public for help with donations of puppy or dog food and have had very good responses," Kloiber said. "It's always in the back of your head, that there might be a hording case tomorrow right up the street where we have to find room for 30, 40 or 90 animals."

Keri Jacquier, animal control officer for the Town of Groton, said her facility on Groton Long Point Road as of Wednesday had eight dogs, a higher-than-average number. She said the canines were a mix of those in bite quarantine, strays that hadn't been claimed and those available for adoption.

"Our intake numbers are definitely up and it's also taking longer for both dogs and cats to get adopted," Jacquier said, citing the same challenges — the economy, frequent hoarding cases and abandonments — as her colleagues in Norwich and New London.

Kloiber said the only real solution to shelter adoption issues will require a "turn in the economy."

"Things won't change until people can house themselves first," she said.