GGLRR and COVID-19

07 Oct 2021

Like all of you, Golden Gate Labrador Retriever Rescue is carrying on despite the challenges of COVID-19 and related restrictions and challenges. While we remain committed to rescuing and re-homing Labs in need, we must honor those protocols designed to reduce the spread and impact of COVID-19. We want to keep our volunteers, our fosters, our adopters, and our animal shelter rescue partners safe and healthy. As always, our ability to take dogs into our program is dependent on the capacity and abilities of our fabulous fosters. We are blessed to have many volunteers step forward and offer to foster dogs in this difficult time – thank you!

Municipal animal shelters are adopting dogs out, and are still taking in stray dogs and some owner-surrender dogs. Capacity challenges continue to exist at many shelters. We remain in contact with animal shelter rescue coordinators and others to identify any Labs that show up at shelters that need rescuing. The last thing we want to see is for an adoptable Lab to be at risk at a shelter.

During the COVID-19 crisis, we will conduct as much Lab Rescue business via telephone, text, email, video teleconference, and social media as we can. To that end, we are following these protocols:

  • We will not be holding any in-person pet fairs, Santa photo-shoots, or participating in any in-person public events until early 2022. We will hold “virtual pet fairs” ala Zoom webinars.
  • We are asking prospective owner-surrenders to keep their dog while we have the dog up for adoption, unless keeping the dog is a safety/security issue.
  • We will evaluate dogs in-person following appropriate COVID-19 social-distancing, face- mask, etc. protocols.
  • We will encourage prospective adopters to contact the rescue reps to learn as much as possible about the behavior and personality of dogs. This could include “virtual visits” to meet a dog via smartphone.
  • We will solicit walking/talking video tours (taken via smartphone) of the homes and yards of prospective adopters and prospective fosters to perform home-checks.
  • We will be holding in-person meet-and-greets between rescued dogs and top candidate prospective adopters only after the rescue rep has performed all other vetting of the prospective adopter. Appropriate COVID-19 protocols will be followed by all participants during these visits. Wearing of face masks, social distancing, keeping visits outdoors are all possible protocols that should be considered and discussed to ensure all participants are comfortable with them.

    Note: According to the CDC: At this time, there is no evidence that animals play a significant role in spreading the virus that causes COVID-19. Based on the limited information available to date, the risk of animals spreading COVID-19 to people is considered to be low. We are still learning about this virus, but it appears that it can spread from people to animals in some situations. CDC Bulletin. The World Health Organization also currently advises that there is no evidence to suggest that dogs or cats can be infected with the new coronavirus.

    Silver lining! Our dogs sure appreciate all this unexpected time they are getting to spend with their humans. We should all take full advantage of this opportunity to enjoy time with our dogs. Belly rubs, ear scratches, long walks on leash with proper social distancing, and backyard fetch action are definitely stress relievers for us all.