As you all know, I am not a serious pup, but today is Presidents’ Day and I have something on my mind. I would like to propose an amendment to the Constitution codifying, abolishing, asserting, repealing, and preventing the extraordinary overabundance of euthanasia going on in shelters across the United States. The amendment would provide, limit, protect, and define the life of dogs (and, okay, cats) in this country. Each year in this civilized nation more than 4 million animals are killed in shelters. This isn’t a civilized number. This is a crushing statistic. It makes me cry. Why is this acceptable? It is so hard to believe that this is going on. They didn’t find homes, like I did. Every day in Sacramento, dogs and cats lives are silenced without notice. There is no outcry. There isn’t even a peep. This nation of animal lovers must, can, should unite, step up, and stop the madness. It is insanity. There is no other definition. We are spending $45.5 billion a year on our pets. We care. Pets are our surrogate children. So what can we do? Many people have thought about this and are making strides. But we all need to be thinking about this and doing something. Spay and neuter. Volunteer. Foster. Adopt. Connect. The shelters can do a better job of showing the public the animals they have available on their websites. Pet of the day. Big photos. Good photos. Make us take notice. Look what happened with me when I was sick. Good photos. Daily information. Consistency. People noticed. People cared. It’s 2011. Bring on the social media. Shelters should twitter and facebook every day. Cookie needs a home. Nemo needs a home. Grab our attention. Pull us in. Get in our face. Do it every day. Make us care. Shake us up. We have short attention spans. Make us want to pass the information on. Throw a contest. Give a prize. Let’s do something about these euthanasia statistics. There are 25 photos of me below. At least that many animals will be killed in Sacramento today.
So well said. So true and so sad.
One can also be a doggie yenta(“matchmaker”). I frequently let Sacramento Meetup organizers know about their breeds at the Sacramento County Bradshaw facility or at the SSPCA (because I belong to the Bradshaw “rescue network”). I’ve also occasionally let folks on Craigslist know about available shelter dogs and breed rescues.