Over 6 million dogs and cats are brought into animal shelters each year and roughly half of them end up being euthanized. The main problem isn’t an insufficient amount of people that are able to adopt a pet, but it’s that there isn’t enough people that choose to adopt.

All too often, people that are willing to become future pet owners are more determined to buy a puppy or kitten at a pet shop. Every animal bought is just another that is put to death in a shelter simply for existing.

Additionally, there’s a good chance that the animals bought in stores were raised in commercial kennels which feature crowded, poorly kept enclosures for the animals being sold as well as their parents.

According to the American Humane Society, three to four million animals are euthanized annually. Even no-kill shelters have their drawbacks despite sounding more kind. In order to keep their assurance of not killing healthy animals, they may need to turn down animals if they run out of space. Shelters that euthanize are at least able to take in every animal but at the cost of others’ lives.

Although cats and dogs make up the majority of animals in shelters, you can never be sure what you might see. I’ve seen turtles and ducks before and I’ve even adopted a couple of snakes that escaped from their former owners. They were actually in fairly good health too.

A little misconception about adopting from shelters is that the animals there aren’t entirely healthy. Although shelters might approach a lack of space differently, the one thing they all share in common is that they make sure that all the animals up for adoption are completely healthy in terms of physical condition and behavior.

The American Humane Society says many of the animals in shelters escaped from their homes and only 15 percent of dogs and 2 percent of cats ever see their owners again.
It should be no surprise that an ID tag is one of the best ways get a lost pet back. A good portion of the animals are escaped indoor pets, so all pets should be properly identifiable.
Every responsible pet owner should be able to do a part in keeping extra animals out of shelters.
In the famous words of Bob Barker, “Help control the pet population. Have your pets spayed or neutered.”