Anyone Seeing The Big Picture?

Hi Gentle Readers! I can’t believe I’ve lost track of time and have been buried with projects lately. However, I have still kept up on news and found myself thinking there’s been enough going on for several blogs! The one I had planned will come after this, as there’s a trend out there that concerns me.

It seems with people out of work and losing their homes, the animal shelters are becoming overloaded with unwanted pets. The shelter in the nearby town to me opened last year and immediately had the rule of charging people who wanted to surrender their pets to the shelter (good plan!). However, there seem to be two issues for me at this time.

The first one is a friend of mine who is close to 60 years of age and on disability (some $800 a month total) who wanted to help by adopting a small chihuahua mix from her local shelter. When she called to ask about one she saw in the paper, she was told the adoption fee was $350!! When she was on a very limited income, but would voluteer a number of hours at the shelter to offset part of the price, she was told (somewhat rudely) that wasn’t how they did business. She was in disbelief when she called me – she had seen purebreds in the paper for $200! Needless to say, she didn’t get a dog.

Second, I haven’t seen much on discounted prices for spaying and neutering, or mobile clinics, etc. So the animal population continues unchecked in most areas. I ended up agreeing to foster week old kittens after the wild mother was killed (another reason for me not writing…LOL) and will be shopping for an affordable “package price” on getting them fixed before anyone adopts them.

So what I’d like to know is if any of you have a shelter that adopts out for a more affordable fee in your area, or has spay/neuter clinics that give discounts or lower fees to help people afford the cost in these challenging economic times. I’d also be open for any thoughts or suggestions anyone has for turning this situation around for both animals and humans. I keep reading that the shelters are overcrowded and having to put down record numbers of animals. Common sense for me would be to lower the adoption fees (or sliding scale based on family’s ability to pay?) if you want to place more animals than you kill.

Everyone was thrilled when they got the slaughter houses closed for horses last year – without any backup plan for what was going to happen to the crippled, old, or unwanted horses people had. Now we have horses across the country starving to death in back pastures, or in my area – being turned loose in the desert to fend for themselves! Rescue groups have formed everywhere, but they’re operating on tight budgets as well. All but two of the 8 animals I have were rescued (horses, mules, dogs, cats) and now I sit here with 4 2-month old kittens. LOL

Is it just me, or are people not thinking things through to possible conclusions about what might work or not, what the ramifications down the road could be?! Anyone have any ideas about getting some sort of “movement” going to find an affordable way of increasing the spay/neuter options, or making it a bit more affordable to adopt from shelters? Please let me know and I’ll post any ideas you might have to make this more of a win-win situation for all the animals that are sitting in cages or kennels waiting to see whether they will get to go through DOOR #1 or#2…a loving home or heaven. If we put our heads together, we should be able to come up with some sort of workable plan – or if you have one in your area that’s working – please share!