Many North Carolina Animal Shelters prefer to "paw" off their responsibility versus addressing these issues in their own respective counties

We have some wonderful animal shelters here in North Carolina where you will be meet with a friendly staff, open doors along with fully vetted and vaccinated animals up for adoption. However if you take a second look you will find many county animals shelters in North Carolina whose policy on animals welfare is they have no policy, or what they have changes by the hour.

In North Carolina you will find so many animals shelters that are not even open 12 hrs a week, you will find shelters that the staff does just about everything to discourage the public from coming into their shelter but what  should be a major concern for anyone else is that many of these animals are never vaccinated ( not even for rabies) let alone not spayed or neutered before they are adopted or taken in by a rescue group. So what are we doing in NC to reduce the number of unwanted animals that make their way into our county shelter system? We ship them off to other states for them to deal with.

I think it’s wonderful for those who have their heart in the right place and want to save a “ Southern Animal” from a high kill shelter. But at what point and after how many years are we going to tolerate the same process every day that never seems to address the issue at hand of reducing the number of unwanted animals and the health concerns of our state to help reduce the spread of rabies, parvo, distemper, heartworms and more?

How or why would North Carolina allow any animal to leave from their shelters with no vaccinations whatsoever? Let alone allowing these animals back out into the population without being altered? Why do we not see all of the counties in North Carolina signing up for the State Spay & Neuter Program? Why do we not see some local Vets in each county offer to aid in reducing the numbers of unwanted animals by allowing a lower cost spay and neuter program to the local residents of their county even if they choose to do” x”  number a year?

We can all agree with North Carolina being such a high kill state, even with the heavy influx of out-of-state rescue groups and adoptions, clearly we have a problem and it’s staring us right in the face.

NC needs to address their lack of Spay and Neuter issues one county at a time, same with the lack of  vaccinations. If everyone would get on board and stop burying their head in the sand we could reduce our unwanted animal numbers in the first year alone just by spay and neuter.

 

a)      Enact an animal licensing fee in each county, even if it’s only $5.00. Start the process and grow from here.

b)      Establish a core group of local veterinarians in each county and ask them to help with a free spay and neuter clinic a few times a year. Even if each vet office only committed to 20-30 spay and neuters a quarter or year, could you image the impact it would have long term?

c)       Require every county animal shelter to ensure each animal is spayed or neutered prior to adoption. Raise your adoption fee to offset these requirements.

d)      Require every county to ensure each animal is vaccinated esp. for rabies prior to allowing them to be adopted. For those too young to be fully vaccinated, require the disposition paperwork to be returned to the shelter once that animal reaches the appropriate age. If the paperwork is not returned then that person or group is placed on a state-wide bolo alert as a do-not-adopt.

 

This is just a start, I’m sure with the large number of Animal Advocates and Animal Rescue Groups, we can devise a game plan to address these desperately needed changes. And of course for 2014 to be the year for a Commercial, Non Commercial Breeder Bill or Puppy Mill Bill to be signed into law.

North Carolina Shelters are overflowing with litter after litter of kittens and puppies slated to die in 72 hrs. Is this really the best North Carolina can do?  It might be the situation today but I feel confident if we all place our focus on the core issues at hand we can change this and be a much more humane and progressive state on domesticated animal related issues.