Pets, too, losing homes to recession

Owners surrender or abandon animals

Count two barking dogs - a Jack Russell terrier named Shadow and a rat terrier named Precious - among the not-so-quiet victims of the recession. After six years of living together in a Dorchester apartment, they were surrendered to the Animal Rescue League of Boston last month after the woman who owned them lost her home to foreclosure. Now they share a chain-link kennel at the league's South End shelter.

In animal shelters around the area, the story is the same. With the worsening economy comes an increase in animals abandoned or surrendered by owners no longer able to care for them. The rescue league and the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals have begun to see people mention foreclosure as the reason they're giving up their pets, and the MSPCA this year started to officially track it. The MSPCA reports a 45 percent increase in pets surrendered to its Boston shelter for economic or housing-related reasons - from 574 in the first 11 months of 2007 to 836 in the first 11 months of this year.

"This is something that tears people up when they have to surrender the animal," said MSPCA spokesman Brian Adams. "These have been part of the family for years."

The rescue league reports that the number of household animals given up because pet owners lost their homes has doubled - from 50 in all of 2007 to 100 so far this year.

The rescue league charges owners $25 to surrender their cat or dog, and more for litters of kittens or puppies. The MSPCA asks for voluntary donations.

Municipal animal control officers are noticing more pets abandoned to the streets or vacated homes.

"We've gotten calls with pets being left behind. The landlords are calling or the neighbors are calling. Some people have actually left a supply of food," said Hull's animal control officer, Deni Goldman, who is the spokeswoman for the Animal Control Officers Association of Massachusetts. "We've also had people who've turned them in to the animal control officers or the Animal Rescue League or MSPCA. We have some that have been turned loose or tied to park benches. We've seen that all over the state."

The economy also is affecting horse owners. At the MSPCA's Nevins Farm in Methuen, stalls normally used to quarantine animals now serve as overflow housing. Most of the horses grazing in its paddocks - Rusty, a 4-year-old chestnut mustang, and Ice Honey, an 18-year-old thoroughbred brood mare, among them - are there because their owners could no longer afford to keep them.

One of them, Guy, a 15-year-old quarterhorse, lost his home when his owner's home was foreclosed. "He gives kisses," said Melissa Ghareeb, manager of Nevins's Equine and Farm Animal Center. "He's a great trail horse."

In 2007 the MSPCA took in 21 horses given up by their owners, mostly for financial reasons; so far this year it has taken in 35 horses. "We have more coming in before the year ends," Ghareeb said. "The numbers are a lot bigger, which does speak to the economic downturn we're experiencing."

The minimum cost of caring for a backyard horse runs $1,800 a year, not including veterinary or ferrier fees, according to the national Unwanted Horse Coalition. The MSPCA pegs boarding fees at $200 to $1,000 a month.

Cat shelters are also seeing an increase. The Merrimack River Feline Rescue Society has had a 20 to 25 percent increase this year in the number of cats surrendered, said its president, Stacy LeBaron. In Revere, the Animal Umbrella shelter is housing more than 60 cats, up from about 40 a year ago, said president Annamarie Taylor.

"As soon as we place a cat, there's another 10 waiting," Taylor said. "We don't know where to put them. We're all overwhelmed. They're even leaving them outside the shelter door. People are so emotionally upset because they're losing their homes. The last straw is they're also losing the cat they're very attached to."

North Shore Feline Rescue in Middleton is overwhelmed, too. "We are inundated with surrender calls constantly and people finding animals that have been abandoned and left behind," said Susan Dufour, president of the organization. "Adding to the problem is that people are just not spending the money to get their cats spayed and neutered and they are producing still more animals that need homes into the already bad situation."

The news on pet adoptions is mixed. Adoption fees for cats and dogs from the Animal Rescue League of Boston and MSPCA range between $100 and $225, and both organizations report a modest increase in adoptions. "However," said MSPCA spokesman Adams, "our surrenders are up more than adoptions."

Several local cat shelters, on the other hand, report that adoptions are down.

"In a tight economy, funding is hard to come by and adoptions are harder to come by. We have a lot of animals waiting for rescue and a lot of animals in limbo waiting for homes," said Dufour. "We beg and plead. Everybody who is able to help a homeless little cat in their yard, at their door, in their neighborhood - take it in."

Irene Sege can be reached at i_sege@globe.com.

Correction: Because of an editing error, Marianne Gasbarro's name was misspelled in a photo caption with a Page One story Tuesday about pets being abandoned or surrendered to shelters because of the recession.