Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Adoption: Surrender Counseling
"The Humane Society of Indianapolis says it will stop accepting stray animals and begin requiring frustrated pet owners to go through "surrender counseling" before it takes their pets.
Both changes are meant to help the Humane Society close a $200,000 annual budget deficit while reducing the number of animals for which the society must find new homes. But it could mean that Marion County's other large shelter, run by the county's Animal Care and Control agency, may have to deal with another 4,000 to 5,000 animals.
Many of those will have to be euthanized -- as it is now, the city's pound takes in about 18,000 animals a year and kills more than 11,000 of them. Last year, the Humane Society took in nearly 9,000 animals, with strays making up a little more than 2,100."
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2 comments:
"Surrender counseling" sounds like a great idea. The Humane Society may be able to help the owner solve problem issues for the pet owner. Too many people get rid of their pets (especially those from 3 yrs. old to 5 yrs. old) due to unjustified reasons. For example: Suddenly the dog is blamed for a child's allergies when in fact it is the new carpet which is the culprit. Or a new baby arrives and the owners don't know how to deal with jealousy issues or how to introduce the new baby to the pet properly. Very sad. Owners need to think carefully before surrendering their animal.
Wow, what an interesting read! AND what "interesting" comments to the article! Seems a lot of people are mis-informed about the role of Humane Societies. It's really sad that so many of the 400+ commenters seemed to think that it was their absolute right to dump their animals at the humane society free of charge, and that the HS should be responsible for stray pets in the community. They should feel LUCKY that they have a humane society in their community that focuses on animal adoptions rather than animal "control."
What is so bad about changing from open-admission to "low" kill? Is it so bad to want to kill fewer of the pets dumped at the Humane Society? Is it so wrong for them to want to focus on adopting out pets, rather than on housing unwanted pets until its time to kill them? It's a private organization that can do anything it wants. They have no municipal contract to take care of the community's strays. That's AC's job. If the community would rather support a open-intake, high-kill shelter, support Animal control! You can't have the best of both worlds, folks. Not while there are so many pet owners who don't take their responsibilities seriously.
I can't say I totally agree with Indy HS's policies about S/N and other pro-active measures, I think eliminating "stray" surrenders, and at least asking a few questions before the former owner dumps their pet because they're moving or the baby's allergic will do much more good in the long run.
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