Have you ever adopted an animal from a shelter? There are many shelters throughout the US, and although there are quite a few no-kill shelters, there are even more kill shelters. Every day, more and more animals are abandoned by their families, and except for the lucky few, they will all end up in kill shelters and eventually be put to sleep.

Imagine yourself in their position. You were just abandoned by your best friend and brought into a high kill shelter. You don’t understand. You were a good dog; when your masters threw the stick, you fetched it and brought it back to be rewarded with “Good boy” or “Good girl” and a scratch behind the ear. Why would they do this to you? You look around at your surroundings. There are other pets in cages just like yours. There is little space to run around and play. It smells horrible. Like fear. You watch each day as unfamiliar humans walk past you to play only with the super cute puppies and kittens. No one sees that you exist. Every day some of the animals that the humans don’t take home are taken into this room. And they don’t come out. Now it’s your turn to go into that room.

In the US, there are roughly 3500 shelters and many of them are high-kill. 6-8 million animals are brought in to these shelters each year. Some are abandoned, some were born strays. About 3-4 million of them end up getting euthanized because no one would adopt them in time. Some were too old, some weren’t cute enough, and some weren’t pure bred. I have also heard the excuse that a dog “wouldn’t match the carpet.” Some animals are not abandoned, but are brought in to the shelter by mistake. However, the number of animals being reclaimed by their owners is slim. The percentage of dogs that are reclaimed is a small 30%. Cats have it worse off. Their chance of being reclaimed is only 2-5%.

How can we help prevent so many animals from facing this fate? We can prevent pet overpopulation. A simple way to do this is to get your current pets spayed or neutered. When you spay or neuter your pets, it prevents them from reproducing and having babies. Once you have a litter of puppies or kittens running around your household, you may realize that you can’t keep all of them and it costs too much to feed them. It may be difficult to find them good homes. When you can’t support your new additions and you can’t find them good homes, the easiest thing to do is to bring them to a shelter. If they are still young, they will have a good chance of being adopted. But if they are older, they will often be overlooked. If you happen to want to adopt a new best friend from a shelter, look for the ones that are older. They are often not noticed, and are usually already trained to do tricks, well behaved, and housebroken. A puppy or kitten takes a lot of attention and time. If you don’t have this, an older pet may be the best for you. And if you are adopting from a high-kill shelter, you have the satisfaction of knowing that you are saving a life.