Shelter pets brighten shelter in place
A Lake City family was featured on a national news broadcast as part of a story on pet adoptions during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dana Jacobson interviewed Asia Zmuda about her family’s newest addition, an adopted four-month-old puppy named Gomer, for a report that aired on “CBS This Morning.”
Zmuda’s children Ridley, 8, Milla, 10, and Teagen Christensen, 12, began lobbying for a puppy once schools closed in mid-March.
Asia told CBS that Gomer has been a grounding and positive influence for her children during this time.
A former television reporter herself, Asia said the idea for the story came about from a chat she had about Gomer with one of her best friends.
“She works at CBS and thought pet adoptions during COVID might be a great story,” she said. “A producer contacted us a few days later.”
The story reports that California shelters are seeing interest in pet adoptions despite being appointment-only during the pandemic.
Karen Cooper does publicity for for the local animal rescure group, the Hiawatha Animal Humane Society.
“The demand has been high for animals to adopt here in the Lake City/Wabasha area,” she said. “Last week we had only a dog and two cats available. Since that time the dog and one of the cats have been adopted.”
As of Tuesday evening the remaining cat was their only animal available for adoption.
She said the increase in adoptions is good for pets, “if they are adopted into loving forever homes.”
“Too often, once the animal grows into adulthood, or the novelty wears off, they are returned or even unfortunately abandoned,” she said. “I believe, as do my fellow volunteers at the Hiawatha Animal Humane Society, that adopted pets then become family members and should be treated as such. They are a lifetime commitment and if a person is not comfortable making that pledge, they should definitely not adopt.”
People who are ready to commit can search for adoptable pets on petfinder.com. There they can select the kind of animal they are seeking and enter a zip code, and a list of available animals within a 50-mile radius (including those fostered by the Hiawatha Animal Humane Society) will appear.
Each week the Graphic prints a Pet of the Week from the humane society that people can also check for available pets.
