Opinion
Finally! Award winning journalist S. E. Smith speaks up on pandemic puppy surrenders, better ways to approach animal welfare, ways to handle hardship surrenders and social media posturing.
While pets adopted during the pandemic period are being surrendered, data from Shelter Animals Count appear to indicate current relinquishments are not back to pre-pandemic, 2019 numbers.
We are missing an opportunity to talk about better ways to approach animal welfare as a whole. . . Posturing on social media is unlikely to have any meaningful impact on people callous enough to treat animals like last season’s shoes.”
Source: Washington Post, May 17, 2021. Link. The best way to improve animal welfare is to look more clearly at what drives people to give up their pets, and at what reform could make it easier to keep animals and their humans together.
People surrender animals to shelters for a variety of reasons. . . Serious problems in pet owners’ lives are more likely to drive surrenders than bad character.
INSIGHTS: ASPCA’s 2015 study Smith references indicates nearly half of surrenders involved family or housing problems. Many animal health pros would have said that behavior and socialization issues would have constituted half of surrenders.