Julie Barber works at the Kalamazoo Humane Society. She knows a few things about caring for animals. One day last summer, her husband called: he’d found a stray kitten with black and white fur. It had a BB embedded in its forehead.
“I dug the BB out,” Barber said. “But it was kind of infected, and she had fleas and she was a mess.”
The next step was obvious: Barber called her vet to get the kitten some medical care. But the COVID-19 pandemic had put a squeeze on veterinary clinics. Barber was told the kitten would have to wait two weeks for an appointment.
She was surprised. “I even said, ‘she has been shot in the head,’” she recalled. “And he said, ‘yeah, we can’t get you in for two weeks.”
Months later, pet owners, animal shelters and animal welfare groups are finding the demand for veterinary care still outstrips supply. Across the state, animal clinics are experiencing long wait periods for appointments.
They’re still catching up from the pandemic shutdown last spring, when the state ordered vets to hold off on nonessential care, in a bid to help contain the virus.
At the same time, many people who have spent the last year at home have adopted pets – increasing demand for vet services even more.
“I have spoken to some new pet owners,” said Chistian Ast, president of the Michigan Veterinary Medical Association. “They’re saying that they’ve called multiple clinics to find someone who can get them in, or maybe even someone who may be accepting new clients, but, you know, it’s three weeks before an appointment, just because they’re so backed up.”
Local vets are no exception. One clinic on Sprinkle Road says it stopped taking new clients months ago. They hope to resume sometime this spring. It takes a week or more to get an appointment for a sick pet, and surgeries are scheduled a couple months out. Ast said he suggests new pet owners call every clinic in the area and take the earliest appointment.
“And even if the appointment is a couple weeks out, take that appointment because all of the clinics are backed up,” he added.
It’s not just individuals struggling to get care for their pets. Steve Lawrence is the director of Animal Services for Kalamazoo County. He said the shelter is having a hard time getting animals spayed and neutered.
“It’s been very tough for us to try to schedule with even local vets to get animals fixed,” Lawrence said. “They’re scheduled way out, months out. So, you can’t get anything fixed right away.”
The Kalamazoo Humane Society is normally a powerhouse of spay-neuter operations. But KHS had to cancel surgeries during the shutdown last spring. It ended the year with surgeries down about a quarter from 2019.
In December, the Humane Society moved to a new building. Staff member Julie Barber, the one who found the injured kitten this summer, said KHS should be able to fix lots of pets at its new facility. But because of the pandemic it’s been hard to hire new people. She said last month the Humane Society had more than 500 animals on its waiting list.
“It’s pretty crazy right now,” Barber said. “I’ve worked there for six years. I have absolutely never seen a backlog like this and a demand in the community like this before.”
As for the kitten Barber took home last summer – whose coloring earned her the name Oreo – the wound on her head eventually healed and she was adopted by a new owner. Oreo shares her new home with two dogs and another cat.