In case of emergency - be prepared

Daily, animal rescue personnel are faced with one of our greatest challenges - the no longer wanted older dog or cat, especially when it's been someone's companion for several years.    Municipal shelters, by law, have to accept the animals within their jurisdiction.  I can vouch that it is one of the most heart-breaking aspects of their job description.  What makes it doubly hard is when the family members choose to not take the beloved pet into their home.  For the rest of us in rescue, we focus on saving as many dogs and cats as possible and the key word we use in making that decision, most of the time, is adoptable.  Because there are soooooo many unwanted/homeless dogs and cats in our area we have to make the difficult decision to say "no" when an animal is too elderly, severely injured and/or very sick.   Within a six hour period, PAAS had several people come to the shelter who wanted to surrender elderly dogs - some had cataracts, some had tumors, many were missing teeth.  We knew what they really wanted was for us to say "yes" we'll take your animal so the owners would not have to do the right thing - visit their veterinarian to make a humane choice for their pet.  SERIOUSLY!!!! At the end of the day we were emotionally drained.     All of us wish all pet owners had this notification in their billford.  Oh - - -if only!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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