Residents of Barnwell Co, South Carolina are reportedly concerned about the high number of stray pets in the area. There is an animal shelter so I wonder why people don’t take strays there so they can be cared for until they find permanent homes. Maybe it’s because they know that’s probably not what will happen to pets admitted to that shelter. Standard operating procedure at the shelter apparently includes a local Veterinarian who comes by on Fridays to kill pets for space but the shelter fills up again by Monday.
Anyone else see the insanity here?
The community should feel confident that any pet taken to a shelter will be sheltered and, in most cases, properly cared for until adopted by a new owner. That’s what animal shelters are for – to temporarily care for lost and homeless pets until they can be reunited with their owners or new, permanent homes can be found.
A weekly shelter cycle of death and despair serves neither the pets nor the residents of the community and obviously isn’t helping with the local stray problem. So why would we continue funding such an enterprise? Wouldn’t the limited available funds be better spent saving animals’ lives and offering more low cost neuter clinics? There is already a team of community volunteers in place – let’s not squander their good faith investment by putting them to work on killing pets instead of saving them. I’m sure that’s not what they signed up for when they agreed to donate their time.
The answers to the area’s stray problem lie within your grasp, Barnwell County. Reform: It’s a good thing.
Thanks for this. What a good use of your writing skill!
I did some looking around and I could not find a definition of shelter that included “warehousing adoptable animals until they can be conveniently killed”.
Yet, as above, in most cities I have had reason to visit or where I have spoken with people there always seems to be a need for rescues who take calls from people who “don’t want to take their pet to a shelter, ’cause they will probably kill it”.
Yet we, as taxpayers, still keep paying millions of dollars for a service we say we don’t want to use.
Ironic…
Definitions of shelter on the Web:
•a structure that provides privacy and protection from danger
•protection: the condition of being protected; “they were huddled together for protection”; “he enjoyed a sense of peace and protection in his new home”
•provide shelter for; “After the earthquake, the government could not provide shelter for the thousands of homeless people”
•tax shelter: a way of organizing business to reduce the taxes it must pay on current earnings
•invest (money) so that it is not taxable
•temporary housing for homeless or displaced persons
“Yet we, as taxpayers, still keep paying millions of dollars for a service we say we don’t want to use.”
Good point. I would expand it to say that we don’t want to use as they (often) exist at present – as a healthy/treatable pet killing facility. Speaking for myself, I’d actually be willing to pay MORE in taxes for a shelter that would not kill adoptable pets.