pet connection

More than a million homes are in foreclosure, which means a million families of all kinds — including those with pets — are struggling to figure out how how to survive. While the media has reported on many of the sad cases of abandoned pets, the even sadder reality is that people who try to do the right thing may run into the buzz-saw of the culture wars when they try to take their pet to a shelter.

Our Christie Keith explores this situation in her “Your Whole Pet” column on the San Francisco Chronicle’s SFGate.com Web site:

Reasonably, pet owners who don’t want to abandon their pets to an uncertain fate seek help at their local shelter. But rather than being offered assistance, they sometimes are lectured about their “irresponsibility.” Some are simply told that their pets will be put down. This harsh scenario exposes a weakness in this country’s reigning animal-shelter philosophy, which may not be serving the unwitting animal victims of the foreclosure crisis well. But luckily, as in most crises, there are also signs of emerging strength and compassion.

The sheltering philosophy that has dominated animal control policy in this country since at least the 1970s is one that lays the blame for every pet problem, including large numbers of animals being killed in shelters every day, squarely at the feet of irresponsible pet owners.

Proponents of this approach believe that high kill rates in shelters are simply their best attempt at cleaning up after an uncaring and careless public. Their efforts to change people’s behavior come in the form of policies such as mandatory spay/neuter legislation, strict limit and licensing laws, restrictions or outright bans on breeding, and compulsory microchipping. They also rely on their own version of “shock and awe” to punish the public for bad behavior, as when the former director of the Peninsula Humane Society, Kim Sturla, allowed the killing of four kittens, a cat and three dogs to be seen on the evening news back in 1990. She justified her shock tactics by saying that if bad pet owners wouldn’t shape up, “It’s time to take a 2-by-4 and hit them over the head.”

They may have been trying to hit the pet owners, but it should be noted that it was the animals who died. And it’s no different now as they’re using the same tactics on the human and animal victims of the foreclosure crisis.

Here’s the rest. Links to Christie’s complete interviews with Bonney Brown, Cheryl Lang, Betsy Saul and Nathan Winograd, as well as her communication with Traci Jennings, are here.

Also: See Christie’s earlier post discussing how the shelter industry, its staff and volunteers almost universally embrace positive training methods — but respond to people in need with the human equivalent of a sharp and painful jerk of the collar. Guilty until proven innocent.

No vote today again in the California State Senate, with time running out. Still time to call and fax your Senators if you’re a California resident to ask them to vote NO on AB 1634, which will INCREASE shelter population and kill rates and INCREASE the cost to taxpayers per the California Dept. of Finance report. It also inserts the state into a medical decision that should be made by a pet owner after consultation with a veterinarian.

Why are animal-rights advocates pushing this? Christie’s post from yesterday offers some answers.

And speaking of animal-rights activists, hat tip to Nathan Winograd for pointing out that PETA is encouraging people who have to give up pets because they’re losing their homes to take them to an “open admission” shelter (here’s the letter).

Writes Winograd:

In a recent letter to the Editor, PETA tells people not to abandon their animals if they lose their homes to foreclosure. More than that, they tell people not to take their dog to a No Kill shelter but rather to a kill shelter. In the most glaring read given PETA’s history and shelter overkill: they are basically telling people not to abandon their pets but to have them killed at shelters. Once again, they recommend that people not take the animals to shelters which will guarantee to save the life of the animals under the delusional notion that No Kill means hoarding.

In New Jersey, a No Kill shelter does more adoptions than any other in the entire state. In New York, a No Kill shelter does more adoptions than any other in the entire state. In community after community, No Kill shelters are adopting out animals that would be killed elsewhere. Why shouldn’t these animals be guaranteed a loving, new home? Instead, they suggest that people take their pets to a “well run open admission shelter.” Well, I’ve got news for PETA: a well run open admission shelter is No Kill!

I know Christie has been working on an article that gets into this foreclosure situation with regards to pets. We’ll link it up when we have it.

I’m working on a piece on resources for pet-owning families facing foreclosure, and I have a question for you, oh lovely readers.

Would you ever consider fostering a pet whose family was facing a housing crisis?

If not, what would stop you? Concerns you’d become too attached? Financial worries? Thoughts that you might end up stuck with the pet even though it was supposed to be temporary? Lifestyle issues such as that you already have your limit of pets, you have a pet who doesn’t like other animals, or similar reasons? Or something I haven’t mentioned?

I would love to hear your thoughts!

(This is Gina bringing this up from comments, because it’s really people-pet-friendly policy: A story on temporary permits to allow someone to foster, as in the situation when a family member is caring for a soldier’s dogs during deployment. Hope this catches on, and thanks slt for the find.)