Help PETA End the Companion-Animal Overpopulation Crisis

Every year in the United States, several million dogs and cats enter animal shelters or animal control facilities. About half of the animals are adopted; some of these dogs and cats are lucky enough to be adopted into loving, caring homes. But there are far more animals in need of a family than there are people willing to provide them with a good, permanent home. Approximately 3 to 4 million cats and dogs, many healthy and young, are euthanized in animal shelters or by animal control agencies every year. Other unwanted animals suffer a far worse fate—being warehoused for years in “no-kill shelters” that refuse to euthanize unadopted and unadoptable animals. Confined to cages for years on end, they go insane out of loneliness and confinement. Many more unwanted animals are simply abandoned to suffer and die on city streets or in rural areas. There simply are not enough good homes for all the animals being born.

There are two reasons for the overpopulation crisis and the deaths it necessitates. The first is that many people do not spay or neuter their dogs and cats, who then reproduce, creating enormous numbers of kittens and puppies. The other reason is that people buy animals from pet stores, puppy mills, or other breeders instead of adopting cats and dogs from shelters. Learn more about the animal-overpopulation crisis.

People who don’t spay and neuter their animals or who buy animals from breeders instead of adopting from shelters are responsible for the suffering and deaths of cats and dogs. They are responsible for introducing more animals into a world that already has too many cats and dogs in desperate need of good homes.

“No-kill shelters” are not the answer to the overpopulation crisis. They just leave the killing to someone else. No-kill shelters usually only take in the cutest, youngest dogs and cats (so they can tell donors that they have a high adoption rate) and turn away older, sicker, and “less adoptable” animals. When no-kill shelters are full, they turn their backs on all new animals. Read more disturbing facts about “no-kill” shelters.  

Of the animals turned away by “no-kill” shelters, many are left to suffer on the street or are abandoned or killed by their owners. The lucky ones are taken to open-admission shelters, where workers often have to make the difficult decision to give the animals a painless release from a world that doesn’t want them. Learn more about open-admission shelters and euthanasia.

PETA believes that euthanasia is kinder than warehousing a dog or cat in an animal shelter for years on end until he or she goes mad from a lifetime of confinement to a cage and eventually dies. But both options are rotten, and our society should accept neither. The only good solution is to end the birth of more cats and dogs until every dog and cat born has a wonderful home awaiting him or her.

What Is PETA Doing to Help Animals Suffering From the Companion-Animal Overpopulation Crisis?
Every year in North Carolina and Virginia, PETA employees and volunteers build and deliver hundreds of sturdy doghouses for dogs who are chained year-round by their owners. PETA and its volunteers have built a cat shelter in North Carolina from the ground up, and they are currently building another one for dogs and cats in another jurisdiction. PETA staffers come to the aide of thousands of dogs, cats, and other animals suffering from severe illness, abuse, neglect, and abandonment. Learn more about PETA’s work helping animals in North Carolina.

But PETA’s most important work is to help stem the tide of the “unwanteds” by providing low-cost or free spay and neuter services to the companion animals of thousands of families in North Carolina and Virginia. This program saves hundreds of thousands of lives each year by preventing dogs and cats from being born into a world where there is no place for them. Learn more about PETA’s life-saving mobile spay-and-neuter program, SNIP (Spay and Neuter Immediately, Please!).

We Need Your Help!
PETA and other animal protection groups cannot end the animal-overpopulation crisis alone. We need the commitment of individuals and our society as a whole to make the United States a “no-birth” nation. Here’s what you can do to help:

1. Make sure every animal on your block is spayed or neutered, even if that means that you have to drive the animals to the veterinarian or animal shelter and pay for the surgeries yourself.
2. Inform all your friends and family about why they should never, ever buy dogs and cats from pet stores or breeders. Give them each one of our leaflets about pet stores.
3. Call your local animal shelter and animal control agency and ask that they institute a policy in which they spay or neuter every cat or dog adopted out.
4. Ask your local pet store to stop selling animals and just sell animal-care supplies, as well as working with local animal shelters to find homes for unwanted animals in the area.
5. Support organizations that provide low-cost or free spay-and- neuter services. You can donate to organizations like this in your area, or you can sponsor a surgery for a dog or cat in PETA’s SNIP program.
6. Call your city council members, your state representative, and your governor and request that they enact strict spay-and-neuter ordinances, in which guardians must either get their dogs and cats altered or pay a large fee.

Working together, we can end the companion-animal overpopulation crisis. But our entire society needs to make a commitment to stop the births of more dogs and cats, until every animal has a good, loving home. Visit HelpingAnimals.com to learn more about what you can do to help animals in need.