May 29, 2026 · 29 min · 13 segments
When a pet guardian surrenders or rehomes an animal, it's the final difficult decision in their journey with their pet. Many guardians face complex challenges and try to seek out help before reaching…
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Lexis LyGuest
Chantel ArchambaultHost
Sasha ProtopopovaGuestAmy MorrisHostOne of the things you did recently is that you had an article published in March on the circumstances pet guardians face and the support that they try to seek out before making the decision to surrender or rehome their pet.
About 30% of animals that come into shelters are surrendered by their owners, and from what we know from using animal shelter data, we, uh, can often collect a little bit of information about why and how animals enter shelters.
But when it comes to surrender, we often collect and report really only one kind of reason that people surrender animals, which is often why you hear headlines like, you know, "More people are surrendering for cost-related reasons," which is definitely true, but I also think reduces the complexity of the circumstances that might lead people to surrender their animals.
There's a few studies that suggest that surrender itself is not really caused by a single issue, but instead it's often that the owner and their animal are experiencing a lot of different overlapping challenges that might lead them to connect with a shelter.
And so we wanted to kind of capture this by asking and analyzing more questions than just the singular reason why people ended up going to shelters, but instead asking people more about the experiences that happened to them prior to surrendering their animals, including how long they had their animal for, all of the different challenges that they are experiencing, all the different ways that they had tried to keep their pet in their home, and then also all the different methods they might have tried to actually rehome their animals.
That might be to a shelter, but also it might be to community members like family or friends.
I thought it was very interesting and very nuanced, and I really appreciated your perspective on it.
When people hear that someone surrendered a pet, there can be a lot of judgment.
From your research, is there anything that you wish people understood more about what's really going on in those situations?
I think that one thing that people could understand a little bit more is that, again, people are often dealing with a lot of multiple overlapping challenges.
So for example, in our study, we used a method called latent class analysis, which instead of taking a look at all these reasons why people surrendered their animals individually, instead it compiles a lot of different questions together and tries to find patterns in the way people respond in order to create groups of people within your sample.
And so we did find that the sample of participants kind of separated out into a couple different groups, but within these groups, there was a lot of different reasons that kind of contributed to the circumstances that led them to rehome their animal.
So this was a group that was primarily defined by actually not having their animal for that long, so most of them owned their animal for less than a year and actually rehomed their animal within, like, a month.
Most of the reasons as well included having too many animals in their home, but also they were more likely to have another animal in their home.
So while some people might say, "Oh, you know, when people adopt their animals, they don't even know what they're getting into," or maybe they have unrealistic expectations, what might actually happen is that they are trying to transition their animal to living in a new environment and have another animal in their home that they might need to introduce their animal to.
And in fact, we found that it was this group that had the highest likelihood of trying to seek out support to try to keep their pets.
One of the things you did recently is that you had an article published in March on the circumstances pet guardians face and the support that they try to seek out before making the decision to surrender or rehome their pet.
About 30% of animals that come into shelters are surrendered by their owners, and from what we know from using animal shelter data, we, uh, can often collect a little bit of information about why and how animals enter shelters.
But when it comes to surrender, we often collect and report really only one kind of reason that people surrender animals, which is often why you hear headlines like, you know, "More people are surrendering for cost-related reasons," which is definitely true, but I also think reduces the complexity of the circumstances that might lead people to surrender their animals.
There's a few studies that suggest that surrender itself is not really caused by a single issue, but instead it's often that the owner and their animal are experiencing a lot of different overlapping challenges that might lead them to connect with a shelter.
And so we wanted to kind of capture this by asking and analyzing more questions than just the singular reason why people ended up going to shelters, but instead asking people more about the experiences that happened to them prior to surrendering their animals, including how long they had their animal for, all of the different challenges that they are experiencing, all the different ways that they had tried to keep their pet in their home, and then also all the different methods they might have tried to actually rehome their animals.
That might be to a shelter, but also it might be to community members like family or friends.
I thought it was very interesting and very nuanced, and I really appreciated your perspective on it.
When people hear that someone surrendered a pet, there can be a lot of judgment.
From your research, is there anything that you wish people understood more about what's really going on in those situations?
I think that one thing that people could understand a little bit more is that, again, people are often dealing with a lot of multiple overlapping challenges.
So for example, in our study, we used a method called latent class analysis, which instead of taking a look at all these reasons why people surrendered their animals individually, instead it compiles a lot of different questions together and tries to find patterns in the way people respond in order to create groups of people within your sample.
And so we did find that the sample of participants kind of separated out into a couple different groups, but within these groups, there was a lot of different reasons that kind of contributed to the circumstances that led them to rehome their animal.
So this was a group that was primarily defined by actually not having their animal for that long, so most of them owned their animal for less than a year and actually rehomed their animal within, like, a month.
Most of the reasons as well included having too many animals in their home, but also they were more likely to have another animal in their home.
So while some people might say, "Oh, you know, when people adopt their animals, they don't even know what they're getting into," or maybe they have unrealistic expectations, what might actually happen is that they are trying to transition their animal to living in a new environment and have another animal in their home that they might need to introduce their animal to.
And in fact, we found that it was this group that had the highest likelihood of trying to seek out support to try to keep their pets.
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