Crescent-News.com - More animals wind up at shelters and are euthanized

By PETER GREER

Like just about everything else, the slow economy is affecting animal shelters and humane societies.

For various reasons, more and more animals are ending up in dog pounds or animal shelters, and more and more of them are being euthanized.

"It's tough," says Robin Weirauch of the Henry County Humane Society, which operates an animal shelter in Napoleon.

"Fewer people are taking in new animals, we're getting more animals not being reclaimed by owners. Fewer (owners) are able to spend the money for spaying or neutering," which help control the number of unwanted pets.

But money is not the only issue surrounding pet adoption. Another, which hasn't changed over the years, is the condition of the animals.

"Some are prevented from being adopted due to health or behavioral issues," notes Lisa Fortner of the Defiance County Humane Society's animal shelter. Some of the animals, she says, taken in by shelters are ill, hurt or otherwise unadoptable. And often, euthanasia is the only outcome, a situation no one wants but which often must be done.

"There is no set time to keep animals," Fortner says. "We try to keep them as long as possible."

"We do what we can to provide animals with a decent life and ... a humane death," says Weirauch.

While euthanasia is often the case for animals that do not prove adoptable, some shelters, such as in Williams County, may keep animals for as long as it takes.

"We keep (them) for as long as they are healthy and adoptable," says Candy Spradlin of Williams County. "We'll take whatever we can."

While shelters do what they can to make sure as many animals as possible are adopted, Fulton County uses two dog wardens who cover all 407 square miles of the county in the absence of a humane shelter.

"We pick up the dog, take care of them and do what we can to help them get adopted," says dog warden Brian Bannister. "We are sitting at 80 percent placement for dogs.

"Our commissioners and administrative staff are behind us 100 percent. We've been very fortunate."

Eliminating dogs declared unadoptable due to illness, age or temperament, Bannister estimates a 95 percent canine adoption rate in Fulton County and estimates that a number of very effective rescue groups are one main reason why.

Many counties benefit from rescue groups that help find suitable homes for animals.

Many rescue groups, says Weirauch, devote themselves to finding homes for specific breeds of dogs.

Both Defiance and Williams County centers report pet adoption as being somewhat seasonal. "(Adoption) depends on the time of the year," Spradlin says. "Usually, spring and summer are the best times of the year."

But there comes a time when no matter how hard a shelter tries, an animal's luck runs out, and euthanasia follows.

As for the number of animals that have had to be put down, Fortner cannot equate the numbers of euthanized animals to a monthly dog warden report. That report stated that 1,040 pounds of animals were taken to the landfill recently.

"The majority of (euthanized) dogs are very large," Fortner explains.

"A thousand pounds may seem like a lot, but (if they were) St. Bernards or Labradors, it may be only 15 dogs. But one euthanized animal is too many," she adds.

Above all, those who really care about their pets need to take steps to make life easier for themselves, their pets and, should an owner and their pet part ways, the shelter in which the pet may end up.

"The big thing," Fortner stresses, "is to spay or neuter your pets."

"What needs to be improved is not the shelters' performance," Weirauch notes, "but the economic performance."