Inside the Year-End Scramble to Save More Than 100 D.C. Dogs

This article was reported in partnership with the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University.

Responding to a call early last October about a dog seemingly abandoned and tied to a trash can in Meridian Hill Park, a Humane Rescue Alliance animal control officer picked up a 4-year-old pit bull terrier mix named Brooklyn. She had a collar but no microchip, and was so underweight her ribs and hip bones were visible.

Three days later, the HRA, the District’s longtime partner in handling animal control, got a call from Brooklyn’s owner who said they were moving and could no longer care for her.

In December, the HRA would begin preparing for its exit from a 45-year contract with the District that ended in January. While the HRA is staying open, it no longer runs D.C.’s handling of strays and runaways, and no longer has access to the New York Avenue NE shelter it had been using. As January approached, HRA needed to find homes for the roughly 100 dogs that were housed in the District-owned shelter, including Brooklyn.

“I had a plan B, a plan C,” says Kate Meghji, HRA’s chief operating officer. The HRA’s remaining shelter has space for about 110 dogs, half of whom were left in the center’s care after the change in vendors. “We had prepared all of the human spaces in the shelter—conference rooms, offices. We were going to make it work no matter what,” she says.

Shelters across the country have reported overcrowding issues in recent years. The COVID-19 pandemic prompted ballooning numbers of dogs and cats entering shelters, as well as a spike in the number of pet fosters and adoptions. But now, as working from home and virtual learning fade, and pre-pandemic lifestyles resume, fewer adoptions mean shelters are left with many more animals than they’re equipped to handle, and the animals often stay for longer stretches.

In D.C., Meghji says the top reasons dogs end up in shelters are housing issues faced by their owners, the cost of veterinary care, and behavioral issues. While the District passed a bill earlier this year, the Pets in Housing Amendment Act, which reduced the pet deposits and fees landlords can charge and eradicated breed and size restrictions, Meghji says the underlying issues remain.

“These are the three things that we, as a society, need to figure out how to solve,” Meghji says. “What I think is going to be important for the future of organizations like ours, is how we can help support all of these things that happen before an animal needs to come into a shelter. How can we intervene and provide support services?”

According to Shelter Animals Count, a national database of shelter statistics, both the number of dogs being taken into shelters and those being adopted dropped last year. The group’s 2024 year-end report found that while about 2.9 million dogs entered shelters last year (down slightly from 2023), with about 57 percent of them adopted, there were 22,000 fewer adoptions than in 2023 and 20,000 fewer dogs were reunited with their owners. As a result, the length of stay for dogs entering shelters increased, contributing to what the group calls “the ongoing capacity crisis that has persisted since the pandemic.”

“Animals entering shelters are still more likely to be adopted now than before the pandemic,” Stephanie Filer, Shelter Animals Count’s executive director, explained in the report. “However, with transfers and return-to-home rates declining, dogs are at greater risk of euthanasia when space and resources become limited, further challenging shelter operations.”

Brooklyn, the pit bull terrier mix, and Neo, the tabby cat. Courtesy of Priyanka Randhir

Faced with a year-end crisis, the HRA sounded the alarm in the local media, urging a surge in adoptions before its access to D.C. shelter space expired on Jan. 1. And District residents responded: For the week that followed, there was a line out the door, ultimately resulting in the fostering and adoption of more than 170 dogs during the final week of the year, including Brooklyn.

Priyanka Randhir, a 29-year-old who works in tech sales and has lived in the District since 2023, had been urged by a friend to consider fostering a dog. After spending two hours at the shelter, she was matched with Brooklyn. While Randhir intended for it to be a temporary custody arrangement, she soon changed her mind, especially after seeing how well Brooklyn meshed with Randhir’s 4-year-old orange tabby cat, Neo.

“I got too attached, she just fit in so perfectly,” says Randhir, who found that waking up to Brooklyn snuggled next to her has improved her mental health. After four weeks of fostering, Randhir officially filed adoption paperwork. “There were some people scheduled to come see her, but that was the pressure I needed to make the decision.”

Humane Rescue Alliance is open daily, noon to 7 p.m., for walk-in dog and cat (and sometimes bunny and turtle) adoptions at 71 Oglethorpe St. NW. humanerescuealliance.org.

Inside the Year-End Scramble to Save More Than 100 D.C. Dogs

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