Why do you think that the number of dogs abandoned has increased in the last few years? Do you think it is the sign of something else? Is doing that a good thing? These are questions that are all difficult to answer. While there are those who will say that abandoning a dog is an act of cruelty, there are others who will say that it is better to give the dog to someone who can take care of him or her.
This is the reason that animal shelters exist. They are a haven for people who want to adopt a dog or a cat. They can go and pick one of the many that have been rescued. Growing up, my father wanted us to adopt a pup from a shelter instead of getting one from a breeder. “It is an act of kindness and compassion,” my father told me about adopting dogs and cats.
I had the privilege of working in an animal shelter when I was a teenager and saw the other side of the coin. We used to get calls from people all around the city. Some of them were from people who were reporting an abandoned dog or cat. Usually, they had seen them wandering in the streets or even living in a junkyard. When we got to where our new furry friends would be, they would sometimes run from us, fearing we would hurt them.
Most of them had some sort of health condition. Skin infections were very common among them. They would normally be ridden with fleas and ticks and after a few months living on the street like that, things would usually get worse. They were scared, injured and didn’t trust people. Many of them had had serious run-ins with some very bad people who had done something to them. After that, they found it tough to trust someone again.
There were other times when people went to the shelter to drop off their dogs. They would say things like they were not able to look after them anymore because they would be moving soon, or in other cases, someone in the family would be bedridden and the family had to take care of them. Whichever the reason was, I think the dogs and cats they dropped there were better off with us.
In some other cases, people don’t surrender their dogs in a shelter. They sometimes abandon them in the street. In the following case, one person found two Huskies who had been abandoned at a dog park. Initially, people thought that they were just some other visitor’s dogs, but when they saw all their toys with them, as well as a note, reality started to sink in. A good Samaritan called to report this issue and there would be many people involved in making this Huskies’ day, one with a happy ending!
https://youtu.be/hGlw_qP8Ank
