With everyone having spent more time at home due to Covid-19, animal shelters around the island saw a slight uptake in pet adoptions as people sought companionship in animals.

However, many are opting to home a puppy or a small dog breed as opposed to adopting larger, more mature – and hence calmer and less demanding – dog breeds.

The Association for Abandoned Animals (AAA) and Noah’s Ark Dog Sanctuary have voiced their distresses with The Malta Independent that their shelters are chock-full, especially with medium sized Maltese hunting dogs − which they lament are actually the kind of dogs that make better house pets by virtue of their calm and obedient nature.

Seeing as the homeless pet population continues to be an insurmountable problem in Malta these associations have yet again appealed for strict neutering protocols to be adopted by government for all dog breeders; protocols which are currently being ignored as shown by the news of the possibility of the forced introduction of animal kill shelters, as said by the Commissioner for Animal Welfare, Alison Bezzina.

In their attempt to reduce the homeless pet population, the government launched the 'Adopt a Pet Allowance Scheme' at the end of 2019 − handing out €150 to those who adopted a pet and kept it for at least 6 months.

The scheme however, noted the sanctuaries, has not had any desired effect or dealt with the underlying problems.

A closer look: Association for Abandoned Animals (AAA)

Despite relocating to a newly refurbished sanctuary in Birzebbuga in 2018 with better facilities, the AAA currently does not have enough space, volunteers or donations to accommodate more dogs, sanctuary manager Rosalind Agius told The Malta Independent.

This sanctuary is situated on Triq Ħal-Far, is open to the public 7 days a week between 9am and 2pm, and can cater for 80 dogs at a time.

"The older they are and the larger in size they are in size, the less adoptable these poor dogs are – even though they are usually the nicest and least demanding dogs”, Agius said.

They calculate that their shelter homes between 35 to 40 dogs per month who all leave their sanctuary neutered, chipped and vaccinated. Thanks to their own neutering campaign scheme they neuter a further 50 dogs or so per month.

“We can proudly say that all dogs that came in to AAA are not returned dogs from the ones we homed,” Agius said.

'Adopt a Pet Allowance Scheme'
AAA saw a slight increase of people wanting to adopt once the government’s 'Adopt a Pet Allowance Scheme' was implemented, but said that they were very wary of the people seeking to adopt as part of this scheme as €150 won’t go too far to take care of their pet for life.

Agius explained that before homing any dogs AAA makes a “huge effort” to screen the potential pet-parents as they believe the main reason dogs get abandoned is because the adoptees would “not have even thought of the work that goes into a new family member, from training where the dog makes his daily needs, to vet visits and so on,” said Agius.

Agius argues that instead of this scheme the government should invest in neutering campaigns, just as their association is doing out of their own small pocket.

Covid-19 impacts
Though faced with less volunteers and donations due to the pandemic, they persisted in their endeavour to prevent their homed rescue dogs from “again being left on their door,” Agius said.

“Making sure we are homing dogs to responsible people was actually a bigger challenge,” Agius lamented.

She explained how the sanctuary tried their best to ensure they were not homing a “Covid-19 puppy” that would get neglected once their parents returned to their regular lifestyles.

A closer look: Noah’s Ark Dog Sanctuary

This dog sanctuary, established in 2004 is located at Triq Wied Musa, Mellieha – and is open 7 days a week from 8.30 till 11.30 am

Currently at full capacity, they host between 60 and 100 dogs at any given time. They home around 4 to 8 dogs per month.

86 dogs were adopted in 2020, with the adoption rate so far this year being quite poor, sanctuary administrator Mark Vella Bardon told The Malta Independent.

The demand, Vella Bardon said, is largely for smaller dog breeds – of which they very rarely ever have at the sanctuary.

In 2009 they started the national 24-hour emergency ambulance service for stray dogs and cats which was partly financed by the Ministry for Resources and Rural Affairs and then adopted by the government the following year.

Vella Bardon notes that despite their stringent vetting, a few dogs are still brought back to their shelter. Noah’s Ark is very reluctant to accept surrendered family dogs and hence do their utmost to help re-home the dogs to another family; always hoping that it would be a forever home this time around, said Vella Bardon.

“More often than not, the people who return or surrender dogs give us the impression that the reason given [for their surrendering of the dog] is a feeble excuse,” Vella Bardon said.

 
'Adopt a Pet Allowance Scheme'

Vella Bardon said that although the scheme was launched in 2019, the government vouchers for this scheme only started being issued recently and that their opinion like that of many other animal organisations was that it was a “rubbish scheme" which yielded no positive results.

He noted that the only redeeming factor was when the government backtracked due to the uproar by NGOs and gave adoptees the opportunity to transfer the €150 (or part of it) to an animal sanctuary.

Covid-19 impacts
Vella Bardon said that during the past year, fostering requests as well as adoptions increased but that they nonetheless remained very cautious in who they homed their rescued dogs to.

They did not take-up dog fostering offers that they received for the lockdown period as this would have caused more harm than good due to the resulting amplified separation anxiety.

Struggling with your pet’s separation anxiety after Covid-19 work-from-home? MSPCA are developing an Outreach Program to help

Seeing as pets have gotten accustomed to long periods of human interaction during the Covid-19 work-from-home lifestyle, animal rescue service MSPCA is developing an outreach program designed to help people minimize their pet’s anxiety issues.
 
This program is being especially designed to cater for those pets who were adopted during the pandemic and thus have not experienced home-life before Covid.

This initiative is being adopted in order to mitigate the negative reaction that can trigger individuals into thinking of giving up their pet or returning it to the shelter where it was before due to their pets new founded separation anxiety, a spokesperson for the MSPCA told The Malta Independent.