Amerika

Out of sight, out of mind — most people live by this. They initiate causes and never see the effects, so they keep blithely doing what they’re doing. Even more, most of them don’t care because they’re embittered, kind of dumb, and hate themselves/are depressed.

Your pet has 72 hours to find a new family from the moment you drop it off. Sometimes a little longer if the shelter isn’t full and your dog manages to stay completely healthy. If it sniffles, it dies. Your pet will be confined to a small run/kennel in a room with about 25 other barking or crying animals. It will have to relieve itself where it eats and sleeps. It will be depressed and it will cry constantly for the family that abandoned it. If your pet is lucky, I will have enough volunteers in that day to take him/her for a walk. If I don’t, your pet won’t get any attention besides having a bowl of food slid under the kennel door and the waste sprayed out of its pen with a high-powered hose. If your dog is big, black or any of the “Bully” breeds (pit bull, rottie, mastiff, etc) it was pretty much dead when you walked it through the front door.

Those dogs just don’t get adopted. It doesn’t matter how ‘sweet’ or ‘well behaved’ they are.

If your dog doesn’t get adopted within its 72 hours and the shelter is full, it will be destroyed. If the shelter isn’t full and your dog is good enough, and of a desirable enough breed it may get a stay of execution, but not for long . Most dogs get very kennel protective after about a week and are destroyed for showing aggression. Even the sweetest dogs will turn in this environment. If your pet makes it over all of those hurdles chances are it will get kennel cough or an upper respiratory infection and will be destroyed because shelters just don’t have the funds to pay for even a $100 treatment.

BOCL

When all it takes is $25 to buy a pet, and we’re depending on people — most of whom would be peasants in a feudal society, since they lack the brains or self-discipline to plan beyond the next twenty minutes, or see the consequences of their actions — to regulate themselves and ask that difficult question, “Although I really want a puppy, do I have the money, time, patience and stability to be a good puppy owner?”

No surprise many end up abandoned, not adopted, and dead. There’s many more animals than shelters can care for, but it’s easy for us to say, “Just let it go at the mall and the gubmint will take care of it. That’s Why We Pay Taxes, God Damn it!”