how much does all animal welfare agencies enable the public to walk away guilt-free when they dump their family pet on us? unfortunately..alot.
but what are the alternatives? how many people who are moving call the the public and private shelters and are told..."sorry we are full"...how many of those folks just lock their doors and walk away, leaving their cats behind to fend for themselves because they cannot think of what else to do?
how many times have each of us heard...i don't want to take my pet to the spca because i am afraid they will put them down....?
the spca's mandate clearly states they do not put down healthy, adoptable animals.
as long as the cat is healthy and adoptable,...meaning... does not have a mental melt down at the loss of his/her home and become aggressive or stops eating, does not pee inappropriately outside the litter box, is not sick or 100 years old...he or she meets their mandate as a healthy adoptable animal. (please understand that peeing all over the house does in fact make an animal unadoptable...no one very often in my experience, adopts animals who pee all over the house!)
and by the way...peeing all over the house is not a normal behavior (if it is long term and deeply ingrained, it is not easily fixed)..so i ask you..what happened in that cats home to make them pee everywhere? were their litter boxes always disgustingly dirty? did they smell and look so gross, they had to go pee somewhere else? were they continually stressed by too many other animals, or one other bully animal, was there a lot of anger and high emotion coming from the humans in the house? was their litter box too small, too inaccessible, were they punished unfairly? were they sick and never seen by a vet or were they finally seen when it was too late and the habit was already formed?
ahhh but that is another post.
should folks be told that if proven unadoptable their animal will be put down?...in california they do not care, they know thousands of their animals die in shelters everywhere. shit i just read that the humane society somewhere is killing 60 cats a night.
some folks think if they are going to die anyway...why not just open the door and let them go, maybe they might stand a chance?
i don't think we can lay the blame on rescues shoulders for taking in animals or for killing them and not saying that we did. because if we stop doing both, folks will just set their animals "free" as the only alternative their brains can think of.....and for that animal, that option probably sucks the most.
building bigger and better shelters does not help either..it just creates more space that folks think can help their pet in need.
educate, educate, educate on the reality of pets who lost their homes...educate, educate, educate on the ripple effects of letting (or encouraging) pets to breed.
instituting real and enforcible, across the board consequences for having unspayed, unneuutered animals...making it illegal to have a pet if you are not prepared or unable to care for it responsibly for the rest of its life....
i was serious when i said BSL is bullshit....HSL...human specific legislation is the way we have to go. if you are an idiot, if you are a person at risk of an unstable life or environment, if you cannot problem solve your way out of a box....then sorry, no one cares what you want.... you still are not getting an animal to mess up.
animals must cease to be property and become sentient beings entitled to guardians who are legislated by law to care for and protect them appropriately....and too freaking bad if that infringes on human rights.
i hate to tell folks this but...the reason animals are in such dire need in our society is BECAUSE..our rights are more important then theirs. get rid of the loser owners...hit them hard if they actually do acquire a pet. and then our shelters will be half as full because we will have to help significanlty less.
it blows my mind how many people in or on the periphery of rescue, adamantly fight against giving animals their inherent rights.
we have even coined polar opposites...AR (animal rights..this is apparently a bad thing, it means you are nutz) and AW (animal welfarist, which means you are right)
well..i guess i am right and nutz because i believe in BOTH..animal welfare AND animal rights...that is how we ensure they live the life they are entitled to live...by making it the law and hanging the ones (proverbially) who think they can break it.
When shelters do euthanize animals that have been surrendered to a shelter, in most cases, the owners know this. The shelter does not take the animal, lie to the owner and then take it to the back and kill it. They are upfront with the owner, the owner doesn't walk away thinking Fluffy is going to get a happy ending. The owner will give himself a pretty story and say it wasn't his fault though. I disagree with your statement, dog lover, the problem of dogs dying in shelters does not like with shelter worker or the manage. I personally think that is a rude and generalized statement to make. Dogs and cats die in shelters because of society and the morals and standards the majority stand by. Shelters as all standardized institutions are a reflection of society. Change the morals and standards for how we value animals and one day, we will no longer need animal shelters.