HOLMES COUNTY, Ohio — A majority of county-run dog warden departments in Northeast Ohio told News 5 they are reporting a dog population near or even overcapacity.
Animal experts told News 5 they struggle to nail down why they’re seeing more dogs in shelters.
Possible explanations include a downturn in the economy, rising costs across the board and whiplash from the pandemic when so many were adopted.
Geauga County Dog Warden Matthew Granito, the former president of Dog Wardens Association, told News 5 he saw a 50% drop across the state in stray dogs when the pandemic hit. However, he now sees close to 40% more strays compared to a year ago.
We don’t just report the initial story—we follow through to its conclusion. Read and watch our previous reporting on this story below and see more stories that we've followed through on here.
To view adoptable dogs, click on the counties featured in this story to see their available dogs up for adoption.
Holmes County
"This is every county across the board that we’re having this issue," Holmes County Dog Warden Jonathan Beam explained. "It’s just a problem nationwide."
Last month, Beam warned residents in a Facebook post that the shelter was at the point where they would have to resort to putting dogs down because of a lack of space, something they haven't done in the last eight years.
"[Euthanasia is] always on the table; it’s never not on the table," he said. "I didn’t sleep all weekend. This is the closest we’ve been to making that call."
Beam told News 5 they’ve started offering a foster-to-adopt program this year as a way to entice more to adopt, while also opening up more available kennels.
"It’s just one more tool to be able to use to avoid euthanizing and getting too full," Beam explained.
That’s what happened with Brittany Phillips and Rugged, who have since been fully adopted. He now goes by Rugs and has settled nicely in his new permanent home.
"We saw that they posted on Facebook that they were desperately looking for people to come in, so why not try to help in any way," Phillips said. "His ears and his face were just too cute. He took our hearts when we saw him online."
Richland County
"We are currently over capacity and have been since the beginning of the year," Missy Houghton, Richland County dog warden, said. "This is in spite of the fact that we added capacity with ten more kennels for large dogs in 2022. Our average length of stay last year was 22 days, and this year it is 47 days."
Erie County
"In the past two years, with people moving, they can’t take their pets with them, or places won’t let them have pets, and that has been an issue here in Sandusky," said Barb Knapp, Erie County dog warden/humane officer.
Huron County
"People need to think long and hard about adopting or purchasing a dog," Huron County Dog Warden Josh Jasinski said. "It's a commitment and a responsibility. People will get a dog, and they can't handle the ownership and welfare of the dog or just don't want to deal with the dog anymore. For example, people will get a puppy, but by six months to a year, they want to get rid of it because of behavior, or it's a full grown dog and not a puppy anymore."
Stark County
"We have seen a huge uptick of dogs coming into the shelter," Sgt. Jon Barber, Stark County Dog Warden, told News 5. "During COVID-19, our numbers were way down. Please spay and neuter as well as microchip your pets."
Carroll and Wayne counties
In Carroll County, the Dog Warden told News 5 they are seeing 55% more dogs compared to 2021, while Wayne County has seen a 35% increase in dogs coming through their doors in the last three months.
Portage County
"It seems people lose their dogs then just never come looking for them," Portage County Chief Dog Warden Dave McIntyre said. "The rate at which dogs are being abandoned just shows a severe lack of compassion in people's lives."
Summit County
"I keep saying maybe tomorrow we’ll get a break, but it's been pretty consistent," Christine Fatheree, managing director of Summit County Animal Control, told News 5. "We are at full capacity for months and months now. It’s never been this full."
She went from handling 50-60 dogs at a time to now 80-90. This uptick has forced places to get creative.
"We’ve used our visitation rooms, we’ve used our grooming room, we use medical as a housing area," she said. "It’s been pretty interesting."
For Fatheree, they stopped accepting owner-surrendered dogs. For Beam, he has a waitlist of owners trying to surrender their dogs.
In Summit County, one of the ways they’re working to keep more dogs in homes is by doing dog food giveaways once a month.
"Our calls are nonstop with people not wanting their animal and not being able to care for it anymore," Fatheree explained. "Some of that is food related, and if they're not able to put food on a table for themselves, let alone an animal. That was kind of the drive [behind this idea]."
Clay LePard is a special projects reporter at News 5 Cleveland. Follow him on Twitter @ClayLePard or on Facebook Clay LePard News 5.
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