E-Day, D-Day, It's time to face the truth about our shelters.

Today I stumbled upon a picture on "Urgent Dogs - Palm Beach County's" Facebook page which sparked some debate. The picture shows the dark side of rescue and shelters, the massive amount of life that is snuffed out of existence.

Palm Beach updates this board to let people know what happens there.

In the picture (shown right) there is a whiteboard with a date and a number, presumably the number of animals put down since January 1st. This theory is bolstered by one comment stating that last winter, before the new year the number was around 14,000.

On the board are pictures of some of the lives lost. In this picture You see Jigga, a pit-bull mix, and Dusty, and unknown mix. Their faces are adorable, ears up, tongue out, ready to live life. They were not awarded such a chance and they never made it out of the shelter.

It seems a gruesome tribute, pictures of dead animals and ever increasing numbers, but Jigga and Dusty are just two  of the 4 to 5 million dogs and cats euthanized in our shelters every day in the US.Because I believe this number is limited by just saying "5 million" that is 4,000,000 to 5,000,000 animals out of the 6,000,000 to 8,000,000 animals who enter the shelters each year.

Of the dogs that enter shelters 61% are euthanized 
                              (only 39% leave the shelter).
Of the cat's that enter the shelter 75% are euthanized 
                             (only 25% leave the shelter).

Even more disturbing is the uphill battle we are fighting. Approximately 70,000 puppies and kittens are born each day. 70,000 more lives which need homes, food, vet care, exercise, time, and love. In one year's time this number skyrockets to 25,550,000 NEW lives joining the already monstrous population of animals in the US. Please remember that there is only about 307,000,000 people in the United States.

A single female cat, and each of her offspring can produce 
        420,000 new lives in 7 years.
A single female dog and each of her offspring can produce 
         67,000 new lives in 6 years.

In 10 years the amount of new lives would match the number of people in the United states, not to mention the number of animals existing right now (note that around 100 million cats are believed to be stray right now (that doesn't even consider how many are living in homes or shelters right now.))

The only way of putting a dent in this massive population, aside for killing millions of animals each year, is to stop the growth of the population, or at least slow it down is to get a hold on the birth rates. This can be done through a simple procedure, a spay or neuter. Remember the earlier statistics about how many new lives one dog or cat can produce in a life time (along with each of their offspring reproducing)? By spaying one dog we could prevent 67,000 dogs from needing homes and give the millions of animals in shelters a fighting chance to get a home. One cat would prevent 420,000 cats from needing homes and give the cats currently in shelters a slightly better chance.

Dusty and Jigga are only two dogs. They undoubtedly spent their last days sitting in the shelter, watching a few people walk past their cage each day, wagging their tails and wiggling in hope only to watch them walk past and head to another animal's cage, or possibly an exit. They may have been afraid of all the noise, hide in a corner shaking, howled for someone to come play with them. One day someone stopped in front of their cage and picked up a leash. Dusty and Jigga may have been excited,thinking they were finally getting out, or may have been afraid, some animals just know. One way or another, they would take that long walk. It was their D-day or E-day, and this would be their last walk, last wag, their last moments.

We come up with shorter names for it like D-day (death day) or E-day (euthanization day) because it is too hard to say "the day where dogs and cats, both old and young, are killed because no one wanted them or could come in time."  The cost of spaying or neutering a pet is less than the cost of raising puppies or kittens for a year and could give a fighting chance to many of the animals in shelters.


The majority of the animals up for adoption are not old, or ugly. They aren't vicious or diseased. Many are adorable puppies and kittens, 25% of which are purebred, which are just out of time. Some get two months, which is generous, others get less than 2 weeks.
Full-term litters of puppies and kittens are aborted when they could easily survive outside of the womb. Grace was one of our rescues who faced this horrible procedure, and she is in no way alone in facing this. Lilly lost 12 full-term puppies. She is in the picture just bellow, before and after the loss of her puppies.

Here is Lilly, on the left she is pregnant with 12 healthy puppies, and on the right she  has been spayed, the pups aborted.

All of these thoughts are horrible, and as disturbing if not more so as the pictures posted on Palm Beach's board, but until we face the FACTs of shelter life and do something about it, nothing will change.

Please, spay and neuter your pets, help end some of the senseless deaths this year.


"The time is always right to do what is right"
- Martin Luther King, Jr. -

 Rest in peace Jigga and Dusty, you didn't deserve this...

Statistics were acquired from: The Humane Society, The ASPCA,  and The Google US Population Counter.