Shelter in place opens doors for homeless pets

At Sweet Paws Rescue in Essex, a typical year means about 1,500 surrendered or abandoned dogs that get “rehomed.” Through the first 16 weeks of quarantine, says Cynthia Sweet, the rescue already had placed well over half that number.Sweet, who founded the rescue in 2011, typically relies on her team of volunteers to handle the adoption process. Since the stay-at-home advisory began in March, she personally has facilitated more than 100 adoptions.Like Sweet Paws, Medfield’s Forever Home Rescue New England operates without a shelter; it relies on foster homes, in which volunteers care for dogs until they are adopted. Director and founder Joanne Wilkinson says she usually has about 10 homes on call for fostering. In the first six weeks of the pandemic, Forever Home added 15 more foster homes. And the rescue hasn’t always needed them.“Almost every single dog we post is spoken for before they get here,” she says.Claudia Rida of Millis, a volunteer for Forever Home Rescue in Medfield, wraps Flo, a young Great Pyrenees mix, in a towel after a bath.Gretchen Ertl/for The Boston GlobeForever Home has a small facility in Medfield that is dedicated to the intake process. Dogs that arrive i
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