Pets Left Behind

In an upcoming PEOPLE magazine article (April 13, 2009 issue), Jeff Truesdell writes about Pets Left Behind due to the national economic crisis. The focus of the article is on the Sacramento SPCA shelter. It notes that this one shelter alone saw almost 1,000 more pets given up in 2008 than in the prior year; taking in as many as 200 animals each week. The silver lining for this one shelter is that approximately 71% of the dogs brought in find new homes or go to other rescue organizations. This is an open shelter so they take in all kinds of pets including those deemed not adoptable so this is a fairly good "save rate."

The article ends with a woman giving up her two Lhasa apsos. It says that she may call to find out if the dogs have been adopted but then she says that she is not sure she wants to know. Hence, she understood that euthanasia may be what becomes of her family pets.

It is heartbreaking to read how people feel the pressure of taking care of a pet or taking care of their children. And so much of our current legislation, especially mandatory spay/neuter bills and limit laws, push more and more families to have to make these difficult decisions. It just seems so contrary to the goals of those who are concerned about the welfare and health of all animals. It seems irresponsible to be putting these animals at more risk by pushing these types of legislative bills.

SB 250 has the goal of saving animal lives and thus saving California taxpayers dollars. But the truth is, more families will be compelled to surrender their pets because we have no statewide system in place for low cost/no cost spay-neuter programs. We are seeing mandatory spay/neuter fail in the City of Los Angeles because the resources are simply not there. Rather than writing bills that crimilize otherwise law abiding citizens who are actually good pet owners, we should be looking to statewide measures to encourage pet ownership and educate responsible care of the health and well being of all Californian animals including spay/neuter programs.

The goal to reduce the number of animals in our shelters can be achieved through positive programs and education. We have seen in recent years with more and more education being available to the public and more resources utilized, a downward trend in impounds/surrenders/euthanasia. Sadly, the rates are going back up, but not due to bad breeders or bad owners. Just the opposite-- it is due to families having to make difficult financial decisions.

SB 250 is irresponsible especially in these tough economic times. Let us use what resources we have helping people keep their families together including their pets, not push them to the point where they need to surrender their animals because they run the risk of not complying with the law.