The Power of Adoption

A look on the bright side.

A photo series featuring dogs who were adopted during COVID-19 and their story of how they helped their humans through this unusual time.

COVID-19 doesn’t win its fight against animal adoption.

Tuesday, March 17th, 2020. This day will forever be remembered by many Bay Area residents as the first day of Shelter In Place.

With less than a 12 hours’ notice, businesses like restaurants and retailers rushed to prep their employees on work-from-home procedures. Animal shelters too scrambled to find foster homes for their four-legged residents.

But this story isn’t about the many businesses forced to shut down or the tremendous toll the pandemic has taken on thousands of citizens and families locally and nationwide—it’s a peek at a silver lining resulting from people quarantined at home, bored, with increasing anxiety, looking for purpose and to help. And then realizing it was the perfect time to foster or adopt an animal.

This is a story—or rather these are stories of animals who are now in their forever homes.

As shelters closed their doors, local communities and individuals stepped up to help. Thousands of people who had found their days blending together and looking for the calming love of a pet now had the opportunity to support an animal in need. Not surprisingly, many foster contracts turned into permanent adoptions. The demand was so high that some hopeful pet parents waited weeks to hear back from shelters just to learn they were empty! Yes, empty. Shelters across the country found that for the first time, they didn’t have any animals to adopt out. This was a phenomenon of adoption rates that skyrocketed at a scale never seen before.

I have been and continue to be a supporter of animal shelters across the Bay Area and wanted to document these success stories for there is always a positive side to any story.

Take that COVID-19!