“Every week, I run shelter dogs from the Oregon Humane Society. Like many animal shelters, OHS is in an industrial neighborhood with few neighbors to complain about barking… Many people are aware of Portland’s housing crisis. The region’s inability to build low-income and affordable housing has pushed many people to live on the streets in tents, RVs, cars, and other shelters. It is not unusual for us to discover that many of the people living there do have dogs and cats with them…
Adding to this already complicated scenario is climate change. Until recently, Portland could get skate through its summers without needing air conditioning. When the 2021 heat dome brought temperatures around 116 degrees to the city, 72 people died in the city. While this so far sounds like a distinctly human disaster, heat waves and where we live actually have an enormous impact on our animals. A Google search for “veterinarians” yields only 2 hits east of the I-205 corridor, compared to 15 between 1-205 and the Willamette River. Access to veterinary urgent care requires a trip on public transportation or a car, and yet the threats to animals in these neighborhoods during a heat wave are much higher than they are in my own leafy, tree covered neighborhood where our sidewalks are scorching versus blistering…” Read more from the original source
– Excerpt from Heat, Housing and Pets, ClimateSmartPets.com