On any given day, the Saugerties Animal Shelter is a happy, somewhat chaotic cacophony of barks and yaps and the occasional meow, bustling with staffers and volunteers who ensure every dog gets a walk and each cat—even permanent resident Frankie Knuckles—gets attention.
Yet a closer look inside the converted garage adjacent to the municipal dump, where puppies Casper and Smokey were the center of attention on a recent visit, reveals the fragile future of local animal welfare as costs surge and adoptions wane.
Shelters across the Hudson Valley are being squeezed by similar woes: A housing crisis is making it harder for families to keep pets while veterinary and supply costs have doubled. In Saugerties, a $6 million capital campaign is proceeding more slowly than anticipated just months before a December deadline to comply with updated new state animal care standards as animal welfare leaders countywide warn of a system at its breaking point.
“People can’t find an apartment that they can afford, let alone one that accepts pets,” said Eleanor Monfett, who has overseen the town-run shelter for a decade. “Most of the apartments don’t allow pets. If they do, they charge extra. So that’s why adoptions are very, very low at the moment. And surrenders are super high. Surrenders and strays.”
New York’s updated Standards of Care Act, which takes effect on Dec. 15, requires shelters and rescues to meet stricter guidelines on space, capacity limits, temperature control, quarantine protocols, veterinary care, recordkeeping and staff training. While state officials say kennels won’t be shuttered, Saugerties Animal Shelter officials say costly upgrades could overwhelm smaller shelters.
Monfett is supported by two full-time and four part-time staff members, along with a core of about 35 volunteers. While salaries and the building itself are funded by the Town of Saugerties, every cost tied to the animals—from spay and neuter to specialized surgeries—is covered by donations.
It isn’t just a jump in the costs of care. The shelter started raising funds in 2019 for a new building that was slated to cost $1.8 million. Six years later, the project’s cost has ballooned to more than $5.5 million with a $500k construction buffer for unexpected costs.
Town Supervisor Fred Costello remains optimistic, saying there’s “a low probability” that the shelter would be forced to close. He said even raising 60% of the shelter’s target for the past several years would be sufficient.
“The community is going to rally, and we’re going to be able to get this new facility built,” Costello said. “It’s probably not going to be the aspirational building that we wanted at the beginning. We’re going to have to pare it back a little bit more. But I do think we’re going to get there.”
It’s all a far cry from the pandemic, when some 23 million households acquired a pet, seeking companionship while they had more time to care for animals while working at home. Three years later, many workers have been called back to the office, while landlords have grown stricter about keeping pets at home.
Adoptions have nosedived in three years, and stray pickups have doubled, said Adam Saunders, the dog control officer for Saugerties and Woodstock whose own non-profit, Ulster County Canines, takes in about 30 dogs at a time and runs weekly vaccination clinics. Meantime, the average veterinary bill is 60% more expensive than in 2014, double the 30% increase in inflation, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“People are paying more for less care,” Saunders said.
At so-called no-kill shelters like the one in Saugerties, the problems are especially acute because such organizations never euthanize animals to create room for more pets (they do put down animals that are gravely ill or pose a threat).
“In the last 18 months we’ve seen a significant dropoff in adoptions,” said Gina Carbonari, executive director of the Ulster County SPCA. “Animals certainly stay at the shelter longer. Our length of stay has increased dramatically, especially for the large breed dogs. And again, that’s a nationwide issue. The biggest common factor to that, honestly, is the economy.”
Her shelter, established 134 years ago and operating independently of the county government, cares for about 200 animals at a time on a $2 million annual budget. “We’re about $300,000 behind right now on donations for this year,” she said. “That’s a significant number.”
Those sorts of numbers have only made Adele Zinderman, chair of the Saugerties Animal Welfare Fund, more determined to succeed.
“What was a tough job raising money for the new shelter now has become monumental but I must remain positive to get to the end goal,” she said, describing a clean and safe shelter that includes quarantine rooms to limit the spread of disease. “It must happen to take care of our animal community and beyond.”
Zinderman, daughter of shelter founder Marie Post, created the not-for-profit Saugerties Animal Welfare Fund in 2018 to handle donations transparently.
“I didn’t want donations to go into the town and get lost within their accounts,” she said. “So all donations go into the not for profit.”
Back at the shelter, Sue, a retriever mix whose stay since March makes her the longest resident apart from Frankie, looked on as the puppies cavorted. Animals are also waiting longer to be adopted at the Saugerties shelter. In 2020, cats stayed at the shelter for about 30 days on average, but now they wait 77 days. Dogs once averaged 37 days, but their stay has grown to 51 days. Still, Sue is a happy five-year-old who loves people and going on walks and hikes, according to shelter staffers. While a potential human parent is interested, nothing has been finalized—and her 80-pound weight means she may exceed the 50-pound limit for many landlords.
Monfett says she’s exhausted.
“We’re just tired,” she said. “And we’re a little more nervous about it, that’s all. Because it’s our jobs and our passion.”For more information on how to adopt a pet from the Saugerties Animal Shelter, click this link.
Noah Eckstein is the editor-in-chief of The Overlook. Send correspondence to noah@theoverlooknews.com.