All They Need Is Love (And a Home): Unwanted Pets in Cache Valley

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By Jessica Allen

A big problem in Cache Valley that animal shelters and animal control are battling constantly is unwanted pets.

Animals are left behind by their owners, often apartment owners, who move from one complex that allows pets to another that does not.

Some pets are left at the complexes, others are abandoned in the country to fend for themselves, some are taken out and shot, or others still are taken to vets to be put down or shelters to be put up for adoption.

Bryan Lay, an Animal Control Officer in Logan, said that in their impound they have around 380 to 400 dogs each year and twice as many cats.

About half of the animals are claimed by their owners and the rest are rescued by the Cache Humane Shelter, adopted by other people, or euthanized.

Lay said “most people want them, but they move from one apartment to another and they aren’t in a situation where they can keep them.”

Quite a few calls are made to animal control daily for animals to be picked up, reported, or abandoned.

Lay said that aggressive pets are left to be taken care of by their owners and what those pets do are the owner’s responsibility.

Overly aggressive stray dogs are not found as often as lost or abandoned pets in Logan, Lay said.

About half of the animals that are found have collars and half of that have tags to contact the owners.

At the impound the dogs and cats can be adopted for $25, however each week due to not being adopted and over crowding about ten cats are euthanized despite the cheap adoption fee.

However the number of animals that have had to be put down has gone down due to the opening of the Cache Humane Shelter which has taken many of the animals to be put up for adoption by them from the impound.

Michelle Cordova director of the CHS said that they opened up in October but had started taking animals in August.

Cordova said that by the first of October the CHS was filled to capacity with 40 to 50 dogs, 90 cats, several birds, guinea pigs, and rabbits.

The CHS gets at least 40 calls a day asking if they will take in animals that people can no longer take care of or want and the majority they have to turn down or put on a waiting list.

“People should be responsible for their own issues,” Cordova said. “If they got a dog and it grew up be bigger than what they expected then they shouldn’t have gotten the dog in the first place or don’t let your cats breed and have 8 or 9 kittens.”

Cordova said that she’s trying to make people take responsibility for their own animals and only use the shelter as a last resort to take their unwanted pets.

Coming in and giving them a dog, even with a $100 donation is an easy way out, Cordova said, and shouldn’t be the first thing that owners do.

There are times that Cordova said she’ll make room for an animal in emergency situations where she thinks that the owners are going to take it out and shoot it if she doesn’t accept the animal.

One such situation was when one college student came in and asked if she would take his girlfriend cat that she had left at their place.

At first Cordova said that she told him no, but when a friend walked in holding the orange feline asking if she was going to take it and she got to see the broken leg and lack of nutrition the animal was receiving, she quickly changed her mind and told them she would take the cat.

Now ‘Lucky’ as she calls her, has healed and isn’t nearly as thin as she once was when she first entered the shelter.

Some ways that people can find home for their pets before going to the shelters is placing ads in the newspaper, advertisements on KSL.com, or going to the vet and leaving fliers saying that you have a free dog or cat.

The CHS is always busy and they have had to turn people away or else they would have to put down animals that are already there to make room.

Instead they have a long waiting list of many people who want to bring their pets to them and when there are openings they are given a call.

Some of the ways that they have tried to find homes for some for some of the cats is by putting them on sale until New Years in hopes of encouraging people to adopt an adult cat.

The cats are on sale for $30 as opposed to the regular $50 at the shelter but despite the fact that they are not making any money off of the cats it has helped a couple adult ones go to good homes.

Cordova said they would like to put adult dogs on sale but it costs too much to spay and neuter them that they are not able to at this time.

The money that people pay for the animals goes to getting them neutered and spayed so that they can be adopted and not continue to add to the overpopulation of unwanted animals.

According to the American Humane Association in 1997 when 1,000 animal shelters filled out a survey for the National Council on Pet Population Study and Policy it was reported that only 25% of dogs and 5% of cats were ever adopted and 15% of dogs and 2% of cats were recovered by their owners.

The AHA stated that animal control and care centers are not required to keep any records of the number of animals that they euthanize each year, though many do for personal records.

However from the shelters that filled out the surveys showed that roughly 64% of the animals were euthanized that year, 56% of them being dogs and 71% of cats.

These findings from the National Council were that roughly 2.7 million animals, from only those 1,000 shelters that returned the surveys, were being euthanized.

The number of shelters in the United States in not known, but it is estimated that every year at least 9.6 million animals are put down annually.

The CHS has not had to put very many animals down and they try to do everything they are able to do to prevent such actions.

However at the shelter it is sometimes necessary as they have to euthanize kittens when they get distemper or puppies when they get very ill.

Some dogs have had to be put down when they were too aggressive towards kennel workers or have been abused to the point where they are unable to be adopted or helped.

The CHS doesn’t report people if they think an animal has been abused, Cordova said, because if people think that they will call the cops on them for animal abuse they will just take the animals out and shoot them instead.

Sometimes the shelter will try and talk people out of adopting an animal if they think that the animal is not right for an individual or that they won’t be able to take the proper care needed for it.

The CHS tries to be very honest with people about their decision if they don’t think an animal is right for them.

If people can not keep the animal that they do adopt they are told that they are welcome to bring it back to the shelter, and sometimes people have done that.

The shelter is trying to become the central impound for the city, Cordova said, as they try to encourage people to bring their animals to them rather than taking them to the vet to euthanized.

As they can’t take in all animals the shelter will often work together with Four Paws, a no-kill non-profit shelter also in Logan, in picking up animals from animal control.

Cordova said that at the pound there was once a litter of 8 puppies and the shelter took 4 of them and Four Paws took the other half so that neither had to take on all 8 to take care of.

An onsite vet comes out the shelter three times a week to help with the animals and give shots, and the Cache Meadow Vet Clinic also works with them and sometimes calls them up with animals that people bring in to be put down, Cordova said.

What helps with animals going to good homes is when people come in after doing their homework and research on what they want in a pet and what will best suit their lifestyle, Cordova explained.

The best adopters are the ones that have a general idea of what they are looking for so that she can help them find the best pet, Cordova said, they are the ones that know what type of characteristics they want rather than just a type of breed.

Some ways that people can help shelters other than just adopting an animal can be by donations or fostering pets if they have the means and homes that will allow them to do it.

A donation in the form of sweaters, food, animal toys, and money helps the shelter out though not too many money donations are seen.

Cordova said that they sometimes get $30 or $40 dollars here and there but rarely big donations.

Some of the animals that are fostered are either ones that aren’t doing very well in the shelter or have been there for a very long time.

Fostering an animal can help make an animal more appealing to adopt as the foster family or person can tell the potential about the animal’s personality, needs, and habits making it so much more adoptable.


Click here for more American Humane Association information.