From Pandemic to Fires, Helping Pet Families Survive Disaster

2020 has been quite a year for California pet families and animal shelters. At Humane Society Silicon Valley (HSSV), we have plans in place to support the community in circumstances of disaster, but this year forced us to shift and expand in significant new ways. We are ready to meet the unique needs of pet families dealing with not only the coronavirus pandemic, but in some cases simultaneously coping with displacement from area fires and economic hardship. That’s a double or triple threat to pet lovers in our community, but HSSV has stepped up to meet the challenge.

Helping Regional Shelters Make Room for Fire Evacuees

HSSV’s Regional Rescue program transfers animals from other shelters within Santa Clara County (through our WeCARE coalition) as well as farther out into the Central Valley through our partnerships with shelters there. Tulare County Animal Care & Adoptions, one of our Central Valley partners, found themselves close to some of the major central-California fires and needed to take in evacuated pets. In order to make room for these evacuees, they had to quickly transfer out their existing homeless dogs that were already available for adoption. That way, evacuated or displaced pets from the fire can remain housed in Tulare so their owners can more easily locate them.

 On Sunday September 13, 2020, in the late afternoon, Tulare County Animal Services reached out to CHATT (California Humane Animal Transition Team) via the San Francisco SPCA with the request for help. San Francisco SPCA Rescue and Welfare Program Coordinator Amanda Van Kleeck shares: “As a CHATT member, HSSV was immediately apprised of the situation and, within an hour, both HSSV and the SF SPCA had identified the animals they would be able to transfer in. By Sunday evening, a plan was in place to move animals from Tulare County Animal Services to HSSV and the SF SPCA. On Monday, HSSV picked up the animals and all 19 animals were safe and sound by Monday evening.” (The SF SPCA also has fire-response guidance and disaster preparedness information on its website.)

This was a great example of how we partner with other shelters to save lives with the CHATT transport program, generously supported in part by PetSmart Charities. CHATT consists of animal control agencies (Fresno Humane Animal Services, Kings County Animal Services, Tulare County Animal Care & Adoptions) and destination shelters (Humane Society Silicon Valley, San Francisco SPCA, Marin Humane) whose goal is to increase life saving and improve animal welfare in California’s Central Valley, helping close the 100,000-animal gap that is preventing California from becoming a no-kill state.

At HSSV, we are in regular communication with Central Valley shelters, and do multiple transfers each week. We prioritize urgent needs, such as vulnerable young litters or homeless pets with medical or behavioral issues that our partner shelters need HSSV’s support to address. Whenever they have an urgent need that occurs outside of our normal weekly transfers — such as homeless pets needing transport to make room for fire evacuees, or an injured animal — we respond promptly to save lives and support our partner organizations.

In addition to transferring pets to our shelter, we also offer volunteer power to California shelters in need — not just our partner shelters, but those in other areas, too, whenever possible. For example, during the 2018 Camp Fire up in Butte County, we sent a group of about 30 volunteers and staff members to help out at a temporary animal shelter there. We spent a couple of weeks taking care of the animals with our volunteer medical and animal-care teams. And as I write, with the recent fire in Butte County, a team of staff and volunteers are back in the area to assist with animal care in the temporary animal shelters.

 Reinventing Pet Adoption During the Pandemic

 Once we bring in animals in need from our Regional Rescue partners (such as those we recently brought in due to the Central Valley fires), our goal is to treat their medical and behavioral needs and help them find forever homes. With the pandemic as an overlay to these efforts, we have had to reinvent most of our processes to continue making adoption seamless for pets and their prospective families.

 At the start of the pandemic, we created an entirely virtual adoption process using video chat for adoption appointments. Now, we're starting to look at ways to bring people back into our facility safely.

 We also created an online training system to provide support for our new foster parents. It used to be that all new foster parents needed to attend a day-long, in-person training and foster orientation. That's all been moved online.

Additionally, we have started using telemedicine to provide a consistent level of support to our foster families. These changes, while necessary to work within the reality of the pandemic, have also turned out to be incredibly efficient for our staff, foster parents, and adopters. We created these new systems out of necessity, but we achieved a level of efficiency that will help everyone involved even after the pandemic is over.

Thanks to the huge amount of community support, we’ve been able to navigate both the pandemic and this season’s fires in stride. In particular, our Emergency Boarding program (hssv.org/services/emergency-boarding-services) is made possible thanks to our numerous foster families. Whether someone has an urgent pet boarding need due to pandemic issues (like illness or loss of income), fire displacement, or economic hardship, for these or any other reasons, we are able to offer this support, along with a Pet Pantry program.

Helping People and Animals

Our commitment is to help both people and animals in our community thrive. Whether we’re facing a pandemic, a fire, or any other disaster, we want our community to know that HSSV is in this with them, and we’ll get through it together.

 Anyone interested in becoming a foster parent or donating to our Regional Rescue, Pet Pantry, or Emergency Boarding programs is invited to visit hssv.org and connect with us. Together, we help pets and their people live happy, healthy lives.