Welcome to my pet friendly blogosphere! This blog will be
updated during the entirety of my time at BASIS. So I hope you enjoy.
Animals have always been a great love of mine. I enjoy their individual personalities, constantly learning minds, and antics—but this feeling is not mutual among us pet owners. Unfortunately, more than 20% of people who surrender their pets in shelters adopted them from a shelter previously— in short, many of the animals are return cases (NCPPSP). This is a terrifying statistic considering that around 4 million out of the 6 million companion animals that enter shelters are euthanized (60% of dogs and 70% of cats; source: ASPCA). These high return rates can be attributed mainly to owners’ inability to attend to their pet’s behavioral and physical needs, while the high rates of euthanization can be traced to the general overpopulation of animals and to shelters’ lack of resources. Due to these factors, millions of perfectly good pets are being put down every year—an unfortunate reality.
In a nutshell, my senior research project will be addressing this issue through three points:
1.) I will be looking at the economical aspect of America’s two main shelter types: open admission (“kill” shelters) and no-kill shelters. Comparing these two kind of shelters in Arizona, I will examine the economical “pluses” and “minuses,” and create a model shelter of my own (as pragmatic and humane as possible!).
2.) Animal Presentation.
3.) Information.
Before I move onto my conclusion, I want to explain how my last two points can alleviate some of the economic burdens that come with running an animal shelter. But just let me clarify that these are my own thoughts, and that I have no evidence at this time.
2.) How a shelter displays their animals, I believe, is an important factor in adoption for many reasons. Firstly, most people are attracted to healthier, happier animals. So I believe that the majority would rather adopt the relaxed cats in the playhouse than the poor dogs on the cages.
Animals have always been a great love of mine. I enjoy their individual personalities, constantly learning minds, and antics—but this feeling is not mutual among us pet owners. Unfortunately, more than 20% of people who surrender their pets in shelters adopted them from a shelter previously— in short, many of the animals are return cases (NCPPSP). This is a terrifying statistic considering that around 4 million out of the 6 million companion animals that enter shelters are euthanized (60% of dogs and 70% of cats; source: ASPCA). These high return rates can be attributed mainly to owners’ inability to attend to their pet’s behavioral and physical needs, while the high rates of euthanization can be traced to the general overpopulation of animals and to shelters’ lack of resources. Due to these factors, millions of perfectly good pets are being put down every year—an unfortunate reality.
In a nutshell, my senior research project will be addressing this issue through three points:
1.) I will be looking at the economical aspect of America’s two main shelter types: open admission (“kill” shelters) and no-kill shelters. Comparing these two kind of shelters in Arizona, I will examine the economical “pluses” and “minuses,” and create a model shelter of my own (as pragmatic and humane as possible!).
2.) Animal Presentation.
3.) Information.
Before I move onto my conclusion, I want to explain how my last two points can alleviate some of the economic burdens that come with running an animal shelter. But just let me clarify that these are my own thoughts, and that I have no evidence at this time.
2.) How a shelter displays their animals, I believe, is an important factor in adoption for many reasons. Firstly, most people are attracted to healthier, happier animals. So I believe that the majority would rather adopt the relaxed cats in the playhouse than the poor dogs on the cages.
3.) I believe information is crucial in the adoption process. For now, I am assuming that most of the time, pet owners are ignorant of both basic animal behaviorism and of essential animal care. For example, I bet many of you did not know that unlike a dog, when a cat wags its tail, it means it is slightly peeved or dislikes a certain action, not that it is happy or excited in a friendly sense. So many cat owners who are bitten and scratched while petting their cats are unaware of the signs their felines were trying to send when they are wagging their tails—“stop petting me!” Consequently, many believe their cats are aggressive or dislike affection and end up returning or abandoning them. Simple information like this, along with the essentials of pet care which I will address later, can help reduce pet returns (or so I believe).
