Once per month, there is a medium-sized gathering of people, with a handful of volunteers in vivid red t-shirts taming down the crowd. It could be at a community center, a senior center, or perhaps a town hall - depending on which town it happens to be in that month. In the span of a few hours, this event holds the potential to vastly change the fate of many animals. Vouchers for pets, dogs or cats, to be spayed or neutered, have been handed out. By the end of a session, over a hundred vouchers are filled out and approved, which means that many animals will undergo the surgery if all appointments are made and kept. It’s a popular service in the somewhat impoverished area known as Monroe county, which is a place known for its small and underfunded animal shelter and, formally, its overabundance of stray dogs and feral cats. Over the course of its running, S.N.A.P. (otherwise known as Spay/Neuter Assistance for Pets) has made a major impact on the animals of Monroe county, and arguably the people as well, at least to some degree. The shelter intake is at an all-time low; rarely is it full. Euthanasia at the shelter is less frequent than previous years. Strays have …show more content…
While the surgery has a higher risk, especially of bleeding, it can still be performed. However, this is still a very commonly debated subject, and can be touchy when it’s being explained to silver-haired, heavily perfumed elderly women, very adamant elderly men, or families with children who really want to see puppies, but couldn’t find proper homes for them if they were born. Of course, I had gotten lucky when talking to the aforementioned women who came in and talked about her pregnant dog. She was somewhat relieved when she found out her dog could be spayed before she’d have to find homes for yet another
Faye is fighting to re-home animals that have been abandoned and abused. Since 2012 she has re-homed more than 60 dogs, and about 20 kittens. Faye says, “I would do anything no matter what to save one animal.” It’s as if her whole entire life revolves around saving animals. Faye thinks just by adopting an animal you can help animal abandonment. Also, Faye has her own book on why animal abandonment isn’t good. Although Faye thinks her job is stressful, she thinks it’s easy because she enjoys doing her job and helping animals find a home.
Nationwide, approximately 50 percent of all children will be bitten by a dog before they reach the age of twelve (DeIorio, “Have a Dog-Bite-Free Summer”). In Marion County, Florida, aggressive and dangerous breads of dogs are a “serious issue” for the community according to Marion County Commissioner Jim Payton (Thompson, “County drops '1 free kill'”). Responsible dog owners seem to be unaware of the problem but area residents who have been victims of these attacks have turned to the Marion County Board of Commissioners for help. The local County Commissioners have been wrestling with this issue since October of 2009 when a widow from Ocklawaha, Patricia McBee, had three of her dogs euthanized after they allegedly killed her neighbor’s cat (Thompson, “County drops ‘1 free kill’”). The need for change moved even faster after a 3-year-old little girl was attacked and killed by a dog that was chained to a tree outside her house in Citra (Lee, “Girl, 3, mauled”).
Four journalists named Helen Jones, Larry Andrews, Marcia Glaser, and Fred Myers thought it would be a good idea to create a nonprofit organization to help animals that have are treated cruelly by either abuse or when they are left alone. The Humane Society has been helping animals since November 24, 1954(2). Their mission since the beginning has been celebrating animals and confronting cruelty. There are a great number of things that the Humane Society has been doing for the animals, like saving them from people who want to harm them. The list of animals that the Humane Society helps is very long, because they don’t just help the household pets that you might have thought. The conditions of the Humane Society change due to the types of animals
Thousands of animals are put to sleep each year due to not having any available homes for them to be adopted. According to Jennifer Sexton and Tom Warhol in Domestic Animal Overpopulation, “The average female cat can produce two litters of six kittens per year, a female dog can produce one litter of six or more puppies per year, making pet overpopulation a significant problem.” Animal overpopulation is costing money and you can help the pets with spay and neutering programs. A new solution is mandatory contracts for breeders and spay and neuter programs. This paper will talk about spay and neuter programs, contracts for breeders, and why some people don’t think animal overpopulation is a problem. Thankfully there are solutions to this issue of animal overpopulation.
The lack of awareness programs attributes to animal hoarding greatly. The Robinson Rescue is an organization that “educate[s] pet owners about the importance of spay/neuter as a means of ending pet overpopulation.” ( ). This organization shows children how they should think of animals so that they do not abuse their animals like a case in which the defendants argued “that pets are classified as personal property…” and that they have feelings too (Donaghey 2011) (Gunnarson). Few people realize that 354 animals are eutha...
When I was little my teachers would ask me “Cora, What do you want to be when you grow up”? In reality, I couldn’t make up my mind on what I wanted to be ‘when I grew up’. When I was around seven, I went from wanting to be a Veterinarian to being an Astronaut, then back to a Veterinarian again. Around age 10, I wanted to be a dentist, even though I hate mouths. Then I wanted to be a Veterinarian again. Junior Year of high school came and when we started to research colleges and careers I heard that Premed programs were so hard to get into, and I wasn’t fooling anyone with my grades. I did some research on Veterinarians and I discovered that the Veterinarians don’t really handle the animals like I thought they did. Then I learned about Veterinary Technicians, they do so much with the animals. I
Ideally, pet supply would be equal to the demand for wanted pets. There may never be enough caring homes for all the pets as is evident by the fact that only about 25 percent of the pets in shelters are ever adopted. F...
There can be no doubt that shelters in the United States are overcrowded, feral cats roam our city streets, thousands of dogs live in grotesque conditions in puppy mills across the country, and yet most American citizens when polled will readily declare that their cat or dog is like ‘a member of the family’. The state of companion animals in this country is precarious at best; caught between scientists who subscribe to Descartes’s idea of ‘anima ex machina’ (unfeeling, a living example of biological processes without the status of ‘being’) and the more common phenomenon of people who pamper their pets in ways that most people would envy. For most individuals living in an urban society such as ours, the most common interaction with animals happens within the home – if the animals that we relate to and interact with the most continue to be abandoned and mistreated on a large scale, there must be some solution that involves more than just building more animal shelters or performing euthanasia more liberally.
Animals are used today for many sources of protection, food, clothing, transportation, sports, entertainment, and labor, but millions of these animals die each year from abuse. “Most of the reasons that people give for denying animals rights are: animals do not have souls, god gave humans dominion over the animals, humans are intellectually superior to animals, humans are intellectually superior to animals, animals do not reason, think, or feel pain like humans do, animals are a natural resource to used as humans see fit, and animals kill each other” (Evans). It all started in the nineteenth century, when people began abusing animals by beating them, feeding them poorly, providing them with no shelter or poor shelter, left to die if they were sick or old, or by cruel sports. Most of the organized efforts to improve human treatment of animals all started in England. Around the 1800s, there was signs of rising concern for animal welfare in the United States.
Countless lives locked away in cages and forgotten about have overwhelmed our society, it has left blood stains on our history as a species and if history has taught us anything, it’s that we have a choice to change our ways of adjusting to situations. A war which was fought in pursuit of ending such criminal means, yet we as human beings do little to nothing to end the horrific crimes of animal deaths in shelters. It is no secret that this world has become infused with problems that have extended from one side of the globe to the other. Amongst these problems lies a terrible truth: nearly every year, sums of almost eight million cats and dogs have been placed in shelters around the world. Out of these vast numbers, half will be euthanized; that equals to one animal being put down every 8 seconds. Animals that are not adopted are kept in shelters until they find a home. Most of these shelters do not have enough space or resources to care for the animal. Only 15% of dogs and 2% of cats that enter animal shelters are reunited with their owners. The majority of pets are obtained from acquaintances and family members. Twenty-six percent of dogs are purchased from breeders, 20 to 30 percent of cats and dogs are adopted from shelters and rescues, and 2 to 10 percent are purchased from pet shops. In addition, only 56% of dogs and 71% of cats that enter animal shelters are euthanized. The 10% of the animals received by shelters have been spayed or neutered, while 78 percent of dogs and 88 percent of cats are not spayed or neutered, in 2009 Statistics from animal shelters in 55 counties in WV (West Virginia) shows that nearly 54% of all animals entering shelters are euthanized, The euthanasia rates ranged from the lowest at 5% to the highe...
You wake up in the hospital, look around, and find a doctor hovering nearby declaring that you have just suffered through a heart attack; affirming that if not for your dog, you would have died. You remember back to earlier that day: sitting on the couch, feeling a little off, hearing your dog barking, sensing him nudging you, going to the phone to call the ambulance, and having your dog by your side until you were safe inside the aluminum walls of the emergency vehicle. Although it sounds abnormal that a dog would be the one to save someone’s life, situations similar to the one above are not uncommon. Dogs and other household pets have been shown to be able to detect medical emergencies, including heart attacks and seizures, in their owners.
Do you know that if you buy a pet from a pet store, there will be some animals die in the shelters? Do you also know that every year there are thousands of sheltered animals are euthanized—mercy killing— because there is no space for them? Many people buy pets rather than adopt from shelters because they think they are healthy, purebred and well-behaved. But actually the sheltered animals may be healthier, happier and much cheaper. In the recent years, more and more people decide to adopt animals since there are numerous advantages such as changing a homeless animal’s whole life, reducing illegal trade and puppy farms and benefiting from long- term advice and support.
"Pet Overpopulation : The Humane Society of the United States." RSS. The Humane Society of
Many of us consider our pets to be part of the family and, just like any other family member, our furry friends are bound to have some medical expenses from time to time. For the most part, these expenses come from standard checkups and immunizations, but occasionally there can be unexpected illnesses and injuries that can rack up some significant expenses when you least expect it.
Animals have become part of our families, and as family members their health is as equally important as our own. For the health of our pets, we should spay and neuter our animals to protect them from potential health risks. Spaying helps prevent uterine infections and breast tumors in cats and dogs. Neutering prevents testicular cancer and some prostate problems. These infections, and cancers can be deadly to our pets. In general, there is a decreased rate in behavioral issues such as spraying urine, roaming, and aggression. In addition to preventive care, altering your pets can help to minimize overpopulation.