COVID Pets: Pandemic Brings Puppy Shortage But Dogs, Cats At Shelters Still Need Forever Homes
PETALUMA (KPIX) -- If all you wanted for Christmas is a puppy, you might be out of luck, this year. There is a puppy shortage during this pandemic depending on where you look.
At Stage Gulch Goldens in Petaluma, two litters of puppies have already found their fur-ever homes. The demand for pups has been overwhelming.
Shayla Toepfner with Stage Gulch Goldens says, "Normally in a regular year we get about 20 emails a month and during this pandemic, we've been receiving 200 to 300 emails a month.
If you're hoping to take one of the puppies home from Stage Gulch Goldens, it's going to be quite a wait.
"We have trained puppies available at 2021, untrained puppies won't be available until 2022," says Toepfner.
If a purebred dog is available now, Toepfner says it's most likely coming from an irreputable breeder. The puppy shortage has been so crazy that scam artists are making big bucks taking advantage of dog lovers.
"I get an email a day saying someone's been scammed, sent $500 for a deposit. Just today... someone opened the account and they had all of my pictures on their Instagram page," Toepfner told KPIX.
If you can't wait until 2022, adopting may be the route to go. Milo Foundation just got a mama and her day old puppies and it has a lot more.
Lynne Tingle, the founder of the Milo Foundation says, "We are seeing a lot of frustration with people looking for small dogs and they're just snatched up like crazy."
Unfortunately, it's the bigger and older dogs that get left behind but not this Monday, because John Charbonneau found the perfect dog to add to his family. Charbonneau says it bring him, "A lot of joy. A little bit of purpose. Something to wake up for and come home too."
One of the bright spots of the pandemic maybe the increase in adoptions. Even the number of cats is down at shelters.
"It really touches the heart to see that outpouring and see people opening their homes to pets," said Lisa Bloch from Marin Humane.
