MOST OF US GREW UP with an image of the classic American family that included Mom, Dad, kids, and Spot. Even back in the 1960s and ’70s, the dog or cat was part of the family. Today that’s truer than ever— Americans have never had so many pets, or loved them so fiercely. So why are shelters overrun with unwanted animals?
Sure, some people don’t spay or neuter, so you get unexpected litters. And surprisingly, there are no more animals coming into shelters than in the 1960s, according to the ASPCA, even though the pet population has climbed exponentially since then—and far more of them are getting out alive. But that still leaves more than 3,000 animals a year being euthanized in Albuquerque’s shelters, for example. So what goes wrong? How could a family member be dropped off in a place where it has a good chance of being killed?
Intense investigation into this question by shelters, rescue groups, and national organizations has begun to yield some interesting answers. The No. 1 reason people give for surrendering their animal, whether at a municipal shelter or nonprofit rescue like Animal Humane New Mexico, is that they’re moving and can’t take their pet. “Or they don’t want to travel with an animal—but how hard is it to travel with a cat?” Barbara Bruin, director of Albuquerque Animal Welfare, says incredulously.
In some cases this is justifiable, since apartment complexes and landlords often ban certain types or sizes of dogs, and people don’t always have the resources to look for other options. And homeless shelters almost never take pets, so during the recession people who lost their homes were forced to try living with their animals in their cars. No surprise that the second most common reason for giving up a pet is economic, especially when it involves vet bills for a sick, old, or injured animal.
But these two reasons serve more as catch-all justifications, animal workers say, for any number of ulterior reasons a pet is being relinquished. Crises happen, of course. But surrendering a pet in response to one is clearly more of a first resort than the last, given that hardly anyone (in America, at least) responds to crises by giving up their children.
The reality behind these rationalizations is becoming clearer now that shelters are making it harder to just hand in your pet. Both Albuquerque Animal Welfare and Animal Humane have started asking people to wait, either by getting on a waiting list or making an appointment in advance, which delays the surrender anywhere from two days to two weeks.
According
to Julie Buckland, program manager at the Albuquerque shelters, about
30 to 40 percent of people end up finding their own solution by the time
she calls them back. They have found an adopter on their own, or
decided to keep the pet. “Some people are just fed up that day, and two
days later they’re like, ‘He’s actually been a really good boy...,’” she
says. Animal Humane reports the same thing, as does the Santa Fe Animal
Shelter and Humane Society. “A lot of people are impulsive,” says Sam
Blankenship, director of adoptions at Animal Humane—so making them wait
has an impact. That’s why so many shelters nationwide are establishing
waiting lists and appointments (“managed admissions”) to slow the flow
of animal intake. “We want them to start viewing us as a last resort,”
says Buckland.
Shelters are also taking preventive measures to keep animals in their
homes, whether it’s giving away pet food or offering low-cost veterinary
care and temporary homes. Such measures are always cheaper than
sheltering animals, which is the most expensive option, says Karen
Medicus, head of community initiatives for the ASPCA.
Bernalillo County offers a good example of why. With no shelter of its
own, the county contracts with Albuquerque to take up to three animals a
day, paying for the service more than $800,000 per year. Animal Care
Director Matt Pepper says his department works hard to keep animals in
their homes, because he has to decide which three animals are going to
the shelter—to uncertain fates—every day.
In other words, when it comes right down to it, if you want to keep
your pet, or find the animal a good home, the rescue community stands
ready to help you keep that animal out of a shelter. People are often
motivated to work harder at solutions once they learn that euthanasia is
a possibility, according to shelter workers; many bring in their pet
only because they think it will be adopted. They may even try to gild
the animal’s resume by claiming a sudden allergy. “They don’t want to
say the dog isn’t housetrained, or the cat scratches,” Bruin notes. “I
would guess people don’t tell the truth because they don’t want to see
the pet euthanized.”
THE IRONY OF THIS situation is that “owner surrenders,” which make up
anywhere from 10 to 45 percent of the animals at New Mexico shelters,
are actually pet owners who care about their animal, and don’t want to
see it harmed.
“These are people who are doing exactly what we’ve asked them to do—
bring the pet to the place where they’ve been told is the safest place
for them,” says Emily Weiss, vice president of shelter research and
development at the ASPCA. “This is a person who loves their pet and
cares.”
Matt Pepper echoes her sentiment. “Sometimes we operate under assuming
the worst-case scenario—that anyone who surrenders their animal is a
bad person. But sometimes they are doing the right thing for the animal
because they can no longer provide the right level of care.”
Consider that almost all dogs in shelters once belonged to someone,
and that three-quarters of them come in to the Albuquerque shelters as
strays, and you see that the people who actually bring in animals
represent the responsible minority. A great many dogs are set loose,
dumped, not tracked down when they escape, or claimed to be stray by an
owner who doesn’t want to answer any questions. (Cats are a separate
issue, since so many of them are born feral.)
So why are people giving up a pet they care about, at the risk of
embarrassment, guilt, and condemnation? It’s actually a complex mix of
factors that ties in to the changing nature of the human-animal bond.
Although Americans have kept household pets since before World War II,
the nature of the relationship has evolved as the population has shifted
from rural to urban. The magnitude of pet ownership also has grown: As
people have moved to populated areas, pet ownership has hit an all-time
high of 68 percent of American households, and spending on them has
followed suit, topping $53 billion this year, according to the American
Pet Products Association (APPA).
In the 1960s, dogs and cats were treated more like livestock, and were
more likely to be owned by people outside the cities. Animals often
lived outside—especially in New Mexico—so housetraining and behavior
mattered less. In recent decades, the shift away from large families and
lifelong community ties has made pets into important companions, who in
90 percent of cases are considered family members, according to the
APPA. With these changing norms and expectations have come new ideas and
images about the role of animals in our lives. And when these images
fail to match the reality of pet ownership, says Weiss, that’s when the
likelihood of abandonment starts to rise.
“Many people, due to things they’ve learned, maybe culture, have
animals because they think they should,” explains Pepper. “Or they have a
dog that serves a purpose, but they don’t have a connection to it—that
dog doesn’t serve as a member of the family.” These are the situations,
he observes, that often end up as neglect and cruelty cases.
Pepper’s department takes the philosophical stance that pet ownership
should be a commitment for life, based primarily on companionship— even
if that position is not supported by law, which still treats animals as
property.
“The majority of the public does not know how much goes into it,”
Blankenship says frankly of dog ownership—an idea repeated often by
those who deal with dogs and humans. “Maybe one in three are what I’d
call ‘dog-savvy,’ in that they have the broader knowledge to identify a
dog’s needs based on its personality type, and not just ‘it’s a dog.’”
IT IS A TRUISM among dog trainers that their biggest job is training human
owners. And it’s no wonder if most dogs that end up in shelters show
little in the way of basic training—housebroken and able to walk on a
leash. The owners of such dogs clearly would be overwhelmed if the
animal started excessive chewing, barking, biting, or digging.
Aggression is the third most common reason that dogs are turned in to
shelters.
Surprisingly, though, impulse buying is not to blame for this lack of
preparedness, according to the ASPCA. Weiss says there is a body of
research showing that people who get pets on impulse, or as gifts, are
no more likely to give them up—and are sometimes a bit more likely to
try to work problems out.
Likewise, a number of shelter directors told us that income does not
correlate with how well animals are treated or trained. “I can’t say
it’s related to economics, that people treat them differently,” says
Swan at the Santa Fe Animal Shelter, which serves communities very rich
and very poor. Pepper says the same of Bernalillo County—that the
decision to persevere or give up on a pet has much more to do with
someone’s attitude about the role of animals in their life.
Certainly, affluent communities have greater access to information and
resources, which is why efforts are being focused now on bridging that
gap. Most of the largest shelters in our state are pouring resources
into prevention— finding ways to help people keep their pets.
Albuquerque is one of a handful of cities chosen for special focus by
the ASPCA Partnership program, which operates on the idea that helping
people who are committed to their pets has immediate payoffs.
“Increasing adoptions is the lowhanging fruit,” explains the ASPCA’s
Medicus, of the ways communities can reduce their homeless pet problem.
“The hard part, once you have your euthanasia rate below 50 percent, is
reducing intake.”
Speaking to a meeting of the Corrales Animal Shelter Task Force in
June, Medicus offered insights into the role that shelters can play in
changing public attitudes. Progressive shelters, she said, are working
to pinpoint the neighborhoods where pets are being surrendered or
abandoned—in some cases using computerized (GIS) mapping or ZIP code
data—and sending outreach workers to offer help and information
proactively through “Pet for Life” programs.
Such an approach has been in effect since 2012 in Bernalillo County,
where the Animal Care department walks targeted neighborhoods with the
county sheriff’s office, not only to look for animal abuse, but to try
to prevent problems before they occur (“Walking with the Pet Patrol,”
Oct/Nov 2013). The department partners with the rescue group NMDog,
which offers to build fences for people who are in violation of the
county ban on chaining dogs.
The ASPCA has found that shelters in this way can have a significant
impact on public attitudes, serving more as an active community resource
than a passive warehouse for unwanted pets. “Keeping them out is where
you have to put a lot of energy,” Medicus told Corrales. “You have to
engage the community.”
WHEN IT COMES TO social behaviors like pet ownership, humans are pack
animals—we take our cues from others. So a shelter can send an important
message when it treats “each animal as an individual,” as Swan
described the philosophy in Santa Fe.
The Santa Fe Animal Shelter & Humane Society has instituted play
groups to keep animals socialized and engaged, along with the two or
three walks each dog gets every day. The shelter sends adoptable dogs
out into the community through its Hounds Around Town program, one in a
package of programs that “have really changed the animals,” Swan said,
“and the way we look at animals.”
When NMDog got its start three years ago, the group ran neighborhood
sweeps to offer housing, food, and blankets for chained dogs. Founder
Angela Stell said dog owners often had an instant change of attitude
when they saw others valuing their dog, and would step up to follow
suit. But it’s a double-edged sword, as Weiss notes, because the more
people think of animals as individuals and family members, the greater
the potential for conflict, mismatches, and disappointment. That may be
why some rescue groups, like Animal Humane, have seen owner surrenders
go up.
Likewise, the greater a community’s desire to go “no-kill,” and stop
euthanizing healthy, adoptable animals, the higher the bar for its
public shelter to get animals adopted and into good homes.
The rewards for this level of commitment, however, are not only on the
animal side. The ASPCA cites studies that show people do not, in fact,
surrender their animals “on impulse,” as they appear to do. “It is a
process that happens over a few months,” says Weiss—which probably
accounts for those who end up leaving a waiting list. The delay does not
change a mind that has been made up, in other words. But it may nourish
a seed of compassion, creativity, and possibility in someone who is on
the fence.
No program or campaign can end animal abandonment for good, or prevent
circumstances that force people to give up their animals, any more than
we can end the abandonment of children and aging parents. But reaching
out to fellow pet owners with help, information, and compassion—rather
than shaming and condemnation—will go a long way toward making it just
as unusual.