Post by trinitydobes on Aug 13, 2011 14:59:10 GMT -5
Its Hard to Adopt a Dead Dog
This is cross posted with permission from another list and I think the content and links are very interesting and shed another light on the whole "over population" and unnecessary euthanizing of many pets that end up in shelters today. The dangers of posts like the one on FB that prompted this reply, is that the readers do not check the information out for themselves and believe at face value what every is posted. I did follow the links and the reading was very educational
Originally posted by Carrin
I was inspired to write this after reading something posted at the No Kill Minnesota Facebook <https://www.facebook.com/NoKillMN> page. They were commenting on the following words posted on the Animal Folks MN website www.animalfolksmn.org/animal-overpopulation.html
*“For every unwanted animal in the U.S. to have a home, each man, woman and child would have to adopt 15 dogs and 45 cats each year.” (American Humane Association) There are not enough loving homes to adopt and care for all the abandoned pets in the United States.
My shock was less about the numbers. I knew they were wrong right off the bat. I mean, c'mon, about 8 million dogs and cats enter animal shelters each year. Yet, there are more than 300 million people in the USA!
But the math gets even worse for Animal Folks... not every pet that enters a shelter in the USA even needs a home. Some are lost pets that are reunited with their owners. Some are feral cats that need TNR services, not new homes. Some are actually DOA. A small percentage are terminally ill and are actually aided by humane euthanasia.
To end the killing of animals in animal shelters, the total number of animals requiring adoption from shelters is between 5 million and 6 million. That number includes the animals that are already being adopted from animal shelters.
At the same time, there are about 20 million families looking to take in a new dog or cat each year. Pet overpopulation is a total myth.
www.examiner.com/pets-in-minneapolis/pet-overpopulation-meme-zeitgeist-and-myth
So, what causes these deaths in animal shelters? For one, it is shelter management that will kill a pet, without ever putting it up for adoption even if the pet has no serious ailments and the shelter has empty kennel space.
Case in point: The Animal Humane Society in Minnesota is a multi-million-dollar enterprise www.ag.state.mn.us/charities/SearchResults2.asp?Fed=410693842&Yr=PREV&cmdSe%20arch=Submit consisting of 5 animal shelters scattered throughout the metro Twin Cities area. They have maintained a kill rate of about 50% for decades, while, at the same time, maintaining large numbers of empty kennels/cages. All the while, they have been importing thousands of animals from out of state. www.animalhumanesociety.org/news/ahs-welcomes-2000th-dog-oklahoma-partner-group-sav%20e-our-strays
An even superficial assessment of the above would indicate that the notion that the deaths at Animal Humane Society are due to "pet overpopulation" is absurd. They are clearly due to bad management, not so-called pet overpopulation.
Note to AHS Mangement, and other shelters like them: if you kill an animal, without ever putting it on the adoption floor, it is impossible to adopt it into a new home... Lazy management seems to be the issue at AHS and other facilities. It is simply easier to kill animals than feed them, clean their kennels and find them new homes. Therefore, some "shelters" find it easier to blame the bogeyman of "overpopulation" for animal deaths rather than actually doing
their jobs.
I guess its a nice gig if you can get it, and you don't mind killing animals... www.animalarkshelter.org/animal/ArkArticles.nsf/AllArticles/91458F757E2DF50F862578C%20C0070B97B?OpenDocument
This is cross posted with permission from another list and I think the content and links are very interesting and shed another light on the whole "over population" and unnecessary euthanizing of many pets that end up in shelters today. The dangers of posts like the one on FB that prompted this reply, is that the readers do not check the information out for themselves and believe at face value what every is posted. I did follow the links and the reading was very educational
Originally posted by Carrin
I was inspired to write this after reading something posted at the No Kill Minnesota Facebook <https://www.facebook.com/NoKillMN> page. They were commenting on the following words posted on the Animal Folks MN website www.animalfolksmn.org/animal-overpopulation.html
*“For every unwanted animal in the U.S. to have a home, each man, woman and child would have to adopt 15 dogs and 45 cats each year.” (American Humane Association) There are not enough loving homes to adopt and care for all the abandoned pets in the United States.
My shock was less about the numbers. I knew they were wrong right off the bat. I mean, c'mon, about 8 million dogs and cats enter animal shelters each year. Yet, there are more than 300 million people in the USA!
But the math gets even worse for Animal Folks... not every pet that enters a shelter in the USA even needs a home. Some are lost pets that are reunited with their owners. Some are feral cats that need TNR services, not new homes. Some are actually DOA. A small percentage are terminally ill and are actually aided by humane euthanasia.
To end the killing of animals in animal shelters, the total number of animals requiring adoption from shelters is between 5 million and 6 million. That number includes the animals that are already being adopted from animal shelters.
At the same time, there are about 20 million families looking to take in a new dog or cat each year. Pet overpopulation is a total myth.
www.examiner.com/pets-in-minneapolis/pet-overpopulation-meme-zeitgeist-and-myth
So, what causes these deaths in animal shelters? For one, it is shelter management that will kill a pet, without ever putting it up for adoption even if the pet has no serious ailments and the shelter has empty kennel space.
Case in point: The Animal Humane Society in Minnesota is a multi-million-dollar enterprise www.ag.state.mn.us/charities/SearchResults2.asp?Fed=410693842&Yr=PREV&cmdSe%20arch=Submit consisting of 5 animal shelters scattered throughout the metro Twin Cities area. They have maintained a kill rate of about 50% for decades, while, at the same time, maintaining large numbers of empty kennels/cages. All the while, they have been importing thousands of animals from out of state. www.animalhumanesociety.org/news/ahs-welcomes-2000th-dog-oklahoma-partner-group-sav%20e-our-strays
An even superficial assessment of the above would indicate that the notion that the deaths at Animal Humane Society are due to "pet overpopulation" is absurd. They are clearly due to bad management, not so-called pet overpopulation.
Note to AHS Mangement, and other shelters like them: if you kill an animal, without ever putting it on the adoption floor, it is impossible to adopt it into a new home... Lazy management seems to be the issue at AHS and other facilities. It is simply easier to kill animals than feed them, clean their kennels and find them new homes. Therefore, some "shelters" find it easier to blame the bogeyman of "overpopulation" for animal deaths rather than actually doing
their jobs.
I guess its a nice gig if you can get it, and you don't mind killing animals... www.animalarkshelter.org/animal/ArkArticles.nsf/AllArticles/91458F757E2DF50F862578C%20C0070B97B?OpenDocument
