Over 7 million homeless pets a year, and we still BUY pets?!

[link to home.arlboston.org]


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Do like the S Americans do, There are 5-6 dogs hit on the highway in a 1/4 mile stretch bu were I live, every night here by trucks, The idiots let them out to roam, and when they don't come home in the morning- oh well! I saw a beautiful German Shepherd cut in half last week, it's head and shoulders were sitting upright in the right lane. True story.





Last Edited by Dr. Gringo-Cracker on 11/25/2012 08:15 AM

Adopt from shelters, don't buy new. Yeah.

While I understand frustration with people who pay hundreds for a pet, sometimes spending a little is not a bad thing.

When we got our dog, who is now a few months old, the lady who we got him from - she paid for the puppies' first vet visit/shots, and asked for $100 per puppy to cover that cost. She even had the Vet. receipt/copy of the bill to show it. I had no problem paying the $100 - I'd spend money anyway on that first vet. visit if she hadn't done it.

"If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who deal likewise with their fellow men."
Saint Francis of Assisi

"Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances of survival for life on earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet."
Albert Einstein, physicist, Nobel 1921

"Behold I have given you herbyielding seed. To you it shall be for meat."
God, Genesis 1:29

"He who slays an ox is as he that slays a man."
Isaiah 66:3, Old Testament Prophet
[link to www.essene.com]

Last Edited by ~Christine~ on 11/25/2012 08:33 AM

you are the definition of why our world is in the state it is - soul-less creature that you are.

Why doesn't god help his creations out then? If he cares so much that is...

all my animals are rescues. i feed the outside cats which won't come in the house.

it snowed last night and their are children, elderly and domesticated animals which need attention. i don't have much in the way of money, but my family and the animals i care for give me love and i appreciate that. i also drive the elderly to doctor's appointments and other places. for free. they do kick in for gas, but that's all.

help those in need. it doesn't take much and those truly in need do appreciate the help.

Well i know a guy who rents his pets.
And, when he grows bored, tosses the pet in the trash.

Most times, if you aren't buying a pet it is either impulsive or you can't afford it. Many of you may be bleeding hearts out there, but probably not most of you, well at least not me.

I will buy a pet known for its temperament, size, needs, and looks. At a puppy's age, I will have a good idea what it will be as an adult.

I will pay for that assurance. Otherwise they would be in the pound too, and there would be no purebred dogs.

Bleeding hearts, go get five dogs, and I will plop the cash down for my one or two.

I have been to all the shelters and a used dog is at least $200. Some of the dogs in the shelters are so sad looking, there seems to be no life left. I do worry about getting a grown dog again because our last shelter dog went after our toddler.

I'm all in favor of animal adoption. I have a shelter doggie myself. However, not all animals are suitable for adoption, and not allowing people to buy the breed of their choice won't stop idiots from getting a pet, then discarding it. Maybe it would help to make laws tougher to get a dog or cat in the first place, I don't know.

We live out in the country, so drop offs happen a lot out here. One was a large mix that just looked like it would rip you a new one but was very well tempered. One of our daughters took it to her house in the city to protect her family; great dog with her kids and she takes it on walks to show she has him. Neighborhood punks steer clear of her house and the houses on either side.

Our 3 current drop offs: Golden retriver, a really odd looking large terrier shepard mix and a cat that eats whatever the dogs eat.

Do not understand why they were left out here; they are great company, very loving and at over 95 lbs each for the dogs are a frightening site out in the yard. We spend about 60 dollars monthly for Costco dogfood to feed them which is not much for the pleasure and protection they give.

As a plus we never have to prewash anything that goes into the dishwasher. The dogs happily clean whatever I cook and the cat lends a hand with certain scraps.

Typical liberal rhetoric. "Save animals, kill human babies."

My brother in law and his wife spent 1k on a purebred olde english bulldog a few years back. He never did the research about the health problems this breed has. He had to have this dog because he he saw someone with one and had to get one. He just spent 19k on vets bills due to the dog tearing some tendons in both its back legs all from running around at a dog park. This dog also has numerous respiratory problems. These breeding practices lead to these animals having horrible health issues.

in many cases its easier to just buy a dog than take it out of the shelter

Sometimes shelters and rescues are the problem

I'm single, live alone, and often have to leave my pets alone for 9-10 hours a day while I'm working. But I have a large fenced yard and am able to take my dogs with me to roam over the farm when I'm working at home.

Because of what I wrote above, I would be disqualified from some shelters and rescue groups. They often demand a stay at home 'parent' for the dogs and some freak out about dogs spending hours off leash chasing rabbits and mice.

The happy life I would give them doesn't matter, they would rather kill the puppies and kitten then see them go to less then a perfect home. Just read some of the quotes and writings from the head of the Humane society. They don't believe that animals should ever be pets. They believe that death is better for dogs and cats then to be debased by being someone's pet.

*FYI I'm never been denied a pet from a rescue group or humane society. If I really wanted one, I know how to lie. But I've read their rules and heard many horror stories from what others have faced.

RESPECT and have REVERENCE for ALL life on this planet (human and animal).


And of course following God's commandments and living by the New Covenant would also help!!!! If all wrongs were done away with, this planet would be a paradise and suffering would be gone for all LIFE. But no! People are still intertwined with greed, sin, war, destruction of planet, murder and abortion. Again, stop all of this, and this planet will become a paradise.

However people ignore the warnings signs (earthquakes, tsunamis, etc etc) and keep living the wrong way. When a lot of the population lives the wrong way, suffering will NOT end.

This is one person that says it well:

[link to intheknow.saoshyant.org]

OFF my soap box for now.

It can be hard to find a healthy kitten or puppy these daze.

Their rarely available in the umm, more affluent areas.

So people buy them.

Perhaps we need to move some of these poor creatures and make them available?

I'm all in on that and would donate even after being a victim of Sandy.

Best Wishes

Having a "holier than thou" attitude over adopting doesn't do anything for your karma or good will

Very true. we have two cats we adopted and a corgie dog we got at a pet store because my hubby really wanted one. It took him years to convince me to get a dog. I was so nervous about the responsability. I got two books first to read. We ended up getting the puppy and he is awesome. He's my first dog and I am totally in love. We thought about getting him a friend to play with and looked at shelters, but I worry about getting a dog that could have behavioural problems that could be passed on to our dog. Also, the shelters are strict because we don't have a yard we have been told they will not adopt one out to us. Same thing when we looked at some cats, I said I let my cats go outside and they said they would not adpot one to us. My cats like going outside and always come in at night and are never out if we will be gone for several hours...oh well.

Millions of homeless humans and some still want open borders.

I bought a cat from a shelter, it was really sick so I figured I would adopt it take it to the vet and it would get better. a couple thousand dollars and over 10 vet visits only to find out six months after we adopted him he had FIP and we had to put him to sleep. FIP is fatal in cats they don't live past two years. I called the adoption agency to tell them because FIP is a litter condition and they just said "oh". I am sure they knew the cat was really sick with something fatal when they adopted him to us...jerks.

I would have adopted one from a shelter but they wanted to visit my house to make sure it was suitable. Give me a break, they acted like it was a freakin newborn baby. I went to the pet shop instead.

As many as 3.5 million people experience homelessness in a given year (1% of the entire U.S. population or 10% of its poor), and about 842,000 people in any given week.

To hell with the animals ....

It costs $125 to get a "free" dog at the shelter here. Also, I went there on 3 different occasions and all they had were pit bulls. The Mexican immigrants in this town always keep pit bulls to protect their houses and because it is "macho" to have a pit bull to them. And of course they don't get them spayed or neutered.

Mass spay and neuter; this would also be beneficial for some humans. If you can't feed them you can't have them.

Used to be an ACO at a county run shelter. Here's what happens to the unadopted pets. At that time they used gas to put them down. They were put into a tank & gassed. They were then put into a barrel with the other dead bodies & when full the barrel was wheeled out to a freezer room to await the rendering company's pick-up. The freezer room was a grotesque sight with frozen bodies sticking out of barrels. That didn't work for very young kittens who were put in a metal box with formaldehyde until they died and then thrown into the barrels.

I always thought that the county should take out a billboard and put that sight on it (of the freezer room) as a way to remind people who turned in animals what might happen to theirs.

When I got really depressed I also fantasized about a law that would require people who turned animals in should watch the execution. But, in reality, I realized that they would only dump them on the side of the road then.

Sometimes they didn't die and as the barrel was being wheeled out to the freezer room there would be crying from the bottom. The kennel worker had to dig down to the bottom of the barrel when this would happen to retrieve the surviving animal & would usually go to the director and ask for permission to give the animal another chance. What a horror, hug??? For this reason the state finally outlawed the use of gas and now it is done by lethal injection.

New ACO's are required to watch the kennel worker do this at least once. I almost quit that day until another ACO begged me to stay and help get more adopted. After long days of calls we would come back to office and try to match up "wanted requests" to the animals we had and made phone calls. The other officers didn't give a shit. One said the more we put down then the less kennels to clean in the mornings.

I always felt sorry for the kennel worker. He wasn't the one who put these animals in the position they were in. It was the pet's owner who had. They were the real executioners.

We were only required to hold a stray for 3 days and "turn-ins" could be put down right away. Almost lost my job one day when an owner turning in her older dog so she could go on a 3 week vacation asked me for reassurance that her dog would get adopted out. I said, "No, probably not." She still turned the dog in & complained to the director. I told him I wasn't going to lie to these people when they asked me and yes, the dog was put down after a couple days. People brought their animals in for the stupidest reasons and made you wonder if they had kids and how they were treated.

We had to work with animal save groups and they would only take what they deemed the most adoptable from us. They would also find animals, know the animal had an owner, but still keep them. They figured if your animal was out roaming then you didn't deserve to be a pet owner. I had to go on many calls of "theft" to get animals back to their rightful owners. Some of these save groups are nuts - typical tree-huggers and very judgemental. Others are just nice people who care and accept the fact that we can't find homes for all of the animals.

One came into our office at our lunch time. She ran one of the local save groups. We were eating burgers. She had a fit and asked us how we could care about animals and eat meat. I noticed she had on a leather belt & sandals so asked her what was the difference from eating them or wearing them. She stormed out. I got in trouble for that one also even though she knew that I and the one other officer were the only ones at the shelter who made any kind of effort for these animals.

These groups often make people sign strict agreements and can try to confiscate the animal after adopting out to you for some stupid reasons such as pet was found loose. Well, accidents happen and if it doesn't occur multiple times shouldn't be a reason in my book.

It's a never ending battle and I don't know what the solution is. It would help, though, if most pets were neutered/spayed and not allowed to roam. Also there are too many "breeders". So many breeders are not reputable.

I quit after a few years. It's not a job you can do for long without losing your sanity and your faith in humanity or becoming calloused. I try to help from the outside now a bit.

I don't think it is a problem that ever can be solved. I hope I'm wrong. But every little bit of effort does help the situation.

As far as caring about these animals and not children: I think that people that care about children would naturally care about animals. It's strange to me that people who care about children don't also have a trickle-down, residual effect of caring about animals also (and elderly, disabled, etc. people - all of the helpless and innocents). Of course caring about children should be top priority but why can't they also care about animals? The two just seem to go together.

I don't. All my animals were rescues or strays that found me.

I wish there were more people like you....... this was very well said!