PetRescue in Adore Magazine!

A Second Home - Adopting from Shelters

Each year in Australian shelters it’s estimated well over a hundred thousand animals are euthanased, the majority of them cats and dogs. The single most positive influence people can have on reducing the number of killings each year is to be responsible pet owners. The other is to adopt from shelters. Although adopting from shelters is not for every situation or every person, as Karen Graham discovers, apart from the ‘feel good’ factor of saving a life, adoption from shelters can be successful, positive and rewarding.

Michelle Williamson was volunteering for a shelter and working for an IT company when she came up with the concept of bringing individual animal shelters together to harness the full potential of the internet. PetRescue, established in 2004, represents more than 220 shelters and seeks to encourage people to think of shelter animals first when looking for a pet.

Michelle says one of the biggest problems for shelters is a lack of resources. Their voices go unheard because they don’t have the money or the marketing power to compete with corporate businesses or individuals mass-producing pets. ‘Generally it’s not because there is anything wrong with the animals, but purely because the shelters don’t have the reach other organisations have,’ says Michelle.

And most shelters are stretched for resources due to the sheer number of unwanted pets. In the 2005–06 financial year the RSPCA alone received nearly 150,000 animals into their shelters. One of the biggest challenges in the fight against overpopulation is educating people to de-sex their pets. ‘There are some shelters taking 150 kittens a day,’ says Michelle. De-sexing is paramount to reducing these numbers.

The full article can be read online at the Adore a new breed magazine website...

Reference: www.adoreanewbreed.com.au

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