Shelters and rescue are busy at christmas. The whole ‘puppy farm’ thing – heartless people getting new puppies dumping their old dog at the shelter. People not being able to get holiday accommodation, not willing to miss their Christmas parties, selfishly dumping pets at the pound. Dogs going stray and not being collected because people don’t really love them. People travelling overseas not being organised enough to plan ahead for someone to care for their pets, simply discarding them. Not to mention, the overall ‘fullness’ of the shelter system during the holidays, making shelter staff stressed! Australians really need to think more carefully before getting an animal. Pets are a ten – twenty year commitment!
I have to admit, that lot flew off my fingers pretty easily. Why? Because we’ve all heard it over and over again. I’ve bought into it. I’ve republished and spread these ideas. Pounds are busy and there is a christmas rush – this I know to be true.
The ‘inevitable Christmas rush’ – the caused by ‘irresponsible owners’ ‘dumping’ their pets at the pound – or just releasing their pets go into the street, abandoning them to whatever fate. Christmas makes us more infuriated than any other holiday. It’s by far the one we spend the most time dreading, reflecting on and lamenting. Why does this have to happen every year!
How overwhelmed are we? Well, if you talk about, the numbers aren’t 10% more, or even 30% more – we’re talking a PROPER XMAS RUSH. Shelters are SWAMPED YOU GUYS! What? Double! the intakes for a normal month? Through November, December and January – are we talking double or triple the normal numbers?
*whew* No wonder rescue takes time out to educate the public about the evils of Christmas…
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So what if I told you, it was all a Christmas story?
The overflowing pounds – the full to the brim rescues – the massive increase in pets languishing without any chance of finding a new family. All of it – a fabrication? How do we know? Because animals are something you can count.
If pounds were busier with ‘dumped’ pets at Christmas, shelters and rescue would be busier at Christmas. More pets would be up for adoption. If there were more pets available for adoption, more pets would be being placed in homes. Everything would be happening and there would be MORE of it. But there’s not.
Here are the last five years of PetRescue’s stats. I’ve highlighted the months of November through January, and added in a trend-line in orange.
You’ll notice – for dogs – there is no doubling, or tripling of adoptable pets becoming available for adoption. Just steady growth, along a modest trend-line, probably reflecting a growing human and pet population.
For cats you’ll notice a bump of a few hundred animals around the Christmas holiday seasons, which is no mistake – it’s science. Cats breed in the hotter months, so it makes sense there are more of them around then. In 2013, there is also a larger bump, and this coincides with the rollout of the statewide cat laws in WA, which drove several thousand cats into pounds and rescue in just a couple of months (branded a ‘success’ by many).
Sooo…. that’s not to say pounds aren’t busy. There are a LOTS of ways pounds maintain over-reach and run themselves overcapacity – it’s how they make the most revenue. There are more pets in pounds over the holidays – but most are reclaimed by owners and don’t need homes. Others are the offspring of unowned cats.
But what is NOT happening, is that there aren’t three months of the year, where more pets are ‘dumped’ by ‘callous, irresponsible owners’ that any other month. Christmas isn’t an inescapable quandry; it’s just another date, another handful of weeks with the same challenges as any other.
Any increase in killing at this time is caused by bad management and disorganisation – it’s not a yearly requirement.
