It seems like there is a stigma around getting a dog from a pet store these days. “Some people don’t care, but then there’s this whole other world of people who are proud that they have a rescue,” said Kathy Shillinglaw, volunteer and outreach coordinator at Milwaukee Area Domestic Animal Control Commission (MADACC). “They would be embarrassed for people to know that they got their dog from a pet store.”
The trend away from buying dogs from breeders and stores is nothing new. Pet owners have been gravitating toward rescues and shelters for years, but data from the Humane Society of the United States suggests that the peak may be yet to come. The percentage of dogs adopted from a shelter or rescue has grown by 7% since 2015 alone. Over that same period of time, dogs purchased from a breeder dropped by 9%, and dogs purchased from a pet store stayed steady at just 4% of all dog acquisitions.
Milwaukee-area shelters are seeing this shift firsthand. At the Wisconsin Humane Society, the average stay for a dog on the adoption floor is just a day and a half. “It was different 10 years ago, but now almost every day of the week we open the door, and there is a line of amazing people in the community who want to open up their hearts and homes to a rescue animal,” said Angela Speed, vice president of communications at the society. “It floors me every day to see that line. It’s a wonderful thing that people are coming to shelters and rescue groups first.”
Millennials Leading the Way
According to the American Pet Products Association’s 2017-2018 National Pet Owners Survey, millennials are now the leading pet-owning age demographic—accounting for 38% of dog owners and 35% of all pet owners. “The industry has changed a lot in the last decade,” said Speed. “It’s happened a lot with millennials, particularly people in their 20s and 30s who are very socially aware. The trend toward buying locally and knowing where products come from translates to knowing where your new, beloved companion is coming from, too.”
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In Wisconsin, a unanimously passed 2009 assembly bill regulating so-called “puppy mills” brought greater attention to the issue. “When people started investigating and learning where their pet store puppy really came from, and that they came from a puppy mill where conditions are just horrible for animals, that awareness helped to drive a lot more people into adopting from humane societies or rescue groups,” Speed said.
As a digital-first generation takes the lead in pet ownership, the way that pets are adopted is also changing. “I definitely think that the switch from people going to breeders and pet stores has changed in a big part due to social media,” said Shillinglaw. “A lot of people didn’t know that there were stray animals in Milwaukee until social media came around.” The Instagram hashtag #adoptdontshop has been used in more than 18 million posts as of this article’s publication; #rescuedog has been used in more than 9 million posts.
Some pet owners are even using social media platforms to bypass the shelter and adopt out their animals directly to friends. “With social media, people who need to rehome their animals are turning to Facebook, Twitter and Instagram trying to become their own advocate for finding their animal a new home,” Speed said. This is beneficial to the animal because, “even as nice as [the Humane Society] is, there’s still a risk of disease transmission, and it’s stressful for any animal to be here.” Luckily, there are less animals coming into shelters these days.
Programs Lead to Less Homeless Animals
“Across the U.S., shelter intake is falling for both cats and dogs, because people are doing more spaying and neutering,” Speed says. “In Wisconsin, we’ve been spaying and neutering routinely since the ’70s, and we’ve seen intake fall even more dramatically than down south, so we don’t see as many puppies coming in through local sources.”
The Wisconsin Humane Society’s Pets for Life Program has employees going door to door in underserved neighborhoods like Milwaukee’s 53206 ZIP code offering spaying and neutering, leashes, collars and other necessary pet supplies to animal owners. The organization has also been focusing more on supporting animals who do have a home in an effort to keep them from becoming homeless in the first place. The Humane Society has a pet food bank for families struggling to feed their pet, and it offers vaccines that can run between $60-100 at a veterinary clinic for just $18.
“In a city like Milwaukee where our poverty rate is so high, there are so many owned animals that need help,” Speed said. “One of the saddest stories that we hear is when people show up and they love their dog and want to keep their dog, but financially, they just can’t.” MADACC’s Friends of MADACC Program sponsored 97 spay and neuter surgeries in 2017 alone. Five years ago, its animal intake was 13,000 per year; last year, the shelter took in 10,000 homeless animals.
In an effort to get more dogs adopted, MADACC is trying out a new initiative called the Weekenders Club, which started operating on Friday, April 13. Designed for people who may want a dog but cannot commit to full-time ownership, participants fill out an application as if they were going to foster, pick the dog up on Friday evening, get an itinerary and all the items they will need, take the dog home for the weekend and return the animal on Sunday. Weekenders can do this every weekend or only once.
The program gives MADACC a better idea of what the animal will be like in a home. It also de-stresses the dog, even if it is only for a weekend. Since members are encouraged to go to dog-friendly local businesses and post to social media, the Weekenders Club also helps the dogs find permanent homes faster.
“I think a lot of people are answering the call that homeless animals need homes,” Shillinglaw said. “Some are filling a void that they have in their house, and there are some people who just really want to help. They know that dogs and cats need a home. Since they have a home, they just feel like they need to open their doors.”
