When the animal shelter in Rosenheim in Upper Bavaria reaches its limits again, you can hear it. It can get a little louder if the dog department is completely full, says Andrea Thomas, chairwoman of the Rosenheim animal protection association, which runs the home. Above all, the 27 employees are stressed – because the home is full of dogs, cats, hamsters and bearded dragons. “That’s the fate of every animal shelter,” says Thomas – knowing that shelters everywhere are facing overload: too many animals, too little space, staff and money.
The situation affects facilities all over Germany, as a survey by the Editorial Network Germany (RND) among 85 homes nationwide showed. According to this, 80 percent have imposed a waiting list or an admission stop for dogs that are to be given away by private owners. This applies to cats in 60 percent of cases.
Bavaria is no exception, as the president of the Bavarian regional association in the German Animal Welfare Association, Ilona Wojahn, confirms. 85 homes are organized under the umbrella of the association. The facilities would help each other and ask where there was still capacity – but increasingly nothing comes back from such requests. A big problem: “The length of stay is increasing because we are getting sick and old animals more and more often.” This applies especially to dogs. Such animals are difficult to rehome. As a result, there is no space for new arrivals.
“We often end up with dogs that have already been resold several times from owner to owner,” says Andrea Thomas from the Rosenheim animal shelter. To prevent things from getting that far, Wojahn is calling for a competency test for future dog owners. The online trade in animals must also be banned. Because the uncontrolled proliferation of cats is filling up homes, there is also a need for a comprehensive cat protection regulation. This obliges owners to register and neuter free-roaming animals. As long as such measures are lacking, the homes will be cramped.
Another home director from Bavaria reports that dogs in his facility had to be temporarily accommodated in a toilet.
Things looked different at the time of the corona pandemic. Back then, many people got an animal companion from a home, says Wojahn. But in times of curfews and closed dog schools, many owners neglected training. Dogs developed behavioral problems and bit – only to eventually find their way back to the animal shelter. As long as there is no stopping the recording.
Then some owners become uncomfortable, reports Thomas, and threaten to abandon the unwanted animals. “As an animal protection association, we are open to blackmail,” she says. Wojahn is also familiar with such cases of emotional blackmail: “It bothers us a lot.”
However, the homes cannot reject abandoned or runaway animals that are found. For such cases, the clubs have contracts with the municipalities – either for an annual flat rate or billed on a case-by-case basis. This solution is often not cost-effective, says Wojahn. Like Thomas, she is calling for a nationwide financial regulation that is not a subsidy for animal protection. Because: “Many animal shelters are being exploited.”