Pet Overpopulation Solutions

With our animal shelters running at their capacity levels and many cats and dogs having to be euthanized every year, we are going to have to evaluate our pet overpopulation solutions. Currently, we are putting around 4 million animals to sleep each year for want of a good home. Some of these are unsuitable for homing due to psychological or aggression problems, but a great many of them would make a wonderful companion for a family or perhaps a lone elderly person.

Pet overpopulation solutions do not end just with putting an animal into a shelter. We must consider what is going to happen to that animal once he is there. Each unwanted pet costs a lot of money to look after whilst in the shelter and many establishments are hard pushed to give the kind of care and medical assistance that the animals need. A lot of shelters are now becoming more like warehouses where individual love and care for the unwanted cats and dogs has been sacrificed in favour of putting a roof over the huge numbers of strays and abandoned animals.

SPAYING

One of the issues that must be addressed is that of education. Many people breed dogs and cats with very little knowledge of the cost and work involved in caring for a litter of youngsters. Medical bills can soon mount up and although you may think that a puppy will be fed by their mum, this is not the case for very long and the food bills will soon start to add up, especially if you have a lot of hungry mouths to feed.

It would be ideal if education could be at the foundation of our pet overpopulation solutions. Many other aspects would then fall into place. People must be taught the facts about what is involved in the breeding of pets. It is not as simple and financially attractive as it seems and this is one of the reasons for the large number of purebreds that end up in pet shelters.

Pet overpopulation solutions also have to include the desperate need to make spaying and neutering available to all pet owners. If this were possible, then we would see a dramatic decrease in the number of unwanted companion animals. Again, much of this problem can be put down to education. Some owners are unaware of the fact that very young cats can become pregnant for example and are surprised when they find that they have a litter of kittens appear. Cats are great at reproducing, especially as they often have a social life outside the home that we know little about! Most of our dogs remain in the home a little more than our cats, but still, however, they do have a tendency to escape and visit the little girl dog down the road! Before you know it there is another litter for the shelter. If we, as a nation, can realise the need for an intense and continuous programme of spaying and neutering, many of these unwanted pregnancies can be avoided.

As a nation of animal lovers, it is becoming obvious that we need to address our pet overpopulation solutions and start acting on the need for education for pet owners. Otherwise we will find that we are unable to cope with the stream of unwanted animals entering the shelters.

Pet Overpopulation Solutions

Ian Pennington is an accomplished niche website developer and author. To learn more about pet overpopulation [http://newspayandneuter.info/pet-overpopulation-solutions/], please visit New Spay and Neuter [http://newspayandneuter.info/] for current articles and discussions.

SPAYING