Foreclosures slam doors on pets, too

cyberrat wrote:

Foreclosures slam doors on pets, too
*http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/...-24-foreclosur....
By Sharon L. Peters, Special for USA TODAY
They're arriving by the thousands every month, homeless, hapless
victims of foreclosure.

Family pets, their lives upended by the ravaged finances of their
owners, are landing in animal shelters in large numbers in some parts
of the country.

PET TALES: The truth about cats and dogs (or at least some interesting
news!)

The precise numbers are unknown, because there is no nationwide
standard for recording foreclosure pets and because many owners who
surrender animals at shelters tell personnel only that they are
"moving" and give no specifics.



But shelters that are experiencing an increase in pet intakes are
almost without exception in areas where the foreclosure rate is high.
Now there's growing concern that another, perhaps bigger wave of pet
surrenders is in the offing, the result of the worsening economy and
growing joblessness that will affect additional homeowners as well as
renters.


Some people are too stupid to have pets, there should be a "means
test" to have pets, and that includes checking credit and
financials...

This should be done for prospective parents of humans, too...



"The fate of people's pets tracks with their own financial fate," says
the ASPCA's Steve Zawistowski. He adds that although some shelters
have been largely unaffected, "there are pockets" where so many
homeowners are losing their homes that the number of pets relinquished
to shelters, turned loose or abandoned is increasing dramatically. The
pockets probably will spread with a deteriorating economy, he says.

The situation is sufficiently worrisome that the Humane Society of the
United States (HSUS) just created a $15,000 seed-money fund (and is
seeking public contributions to it) to help shelters and rescue groups
accommodate in the short term their local surge in homeless pets.



Well, that's a start, for $15K you can buy a LOT of Zyklon B gas which
which to put Fluffy and Spot "down"...and why not put some of their
brain - dead owners "to sleep" while you are at it. It's called
"culling the herd", you get rid of the weak, the stupid, and the
irresponsible...




And
many shelters in hard-hit areas are devising programs to respond.
Among them:

* The Sacramento SPCA, which took in 100 more dogs and cats for
"moving" reasons (176) in the past four months of 2007 as in the same
period in 2006, has developed an early-assistance program to help
people find ways to keep their pets or make temporary-care
arrangements before they reach the out-of-options stage, says director
Rick Johnson.

"We'll visit with the animals and we can meet with prospective
landlords" when it appears, for example, that additional discussion
might help a family keep the pet in new quarters.


Most landlords have a "NO DOGS" policy for a reason; dogs are FILTHY
animals, always ****ing and ****ting and barking everywhere. No
landlord in their right mind wants a dog on the
premises...


And, he says, the
staff is willing to take whatever time it takes to discuss with owners
the possibilities for keeping their animals.

* The Pennsylvania SPCA is waiving for foreclosure victims the fees
associated with its "good-home guarantee" program, which promises the
shelter will keep the pet as long as it takes to find a new home.
"With everything else they're going through, (people who foreclose)
should not have to worry that their animal will be euthanized," CEO
Howard Nelson says.


Uh, why not...??? These people made poor decisions and now want
someone else - and someone else's DIME - to "pick up the slack", so to
speak...



At least 10 families have taken advantage of the
program in less than three months.

The Pennsylvania program is addressing one of animal welfare experts'
greatest concerns: that pet owners, worried that their animals will be
euthanized at the shelter, are setting them loose or leaving them in
empty houses and garages with some food and water. Often the abandoned
animals aren't found for days or weeks and are dead or dying, they
say. And ultimately the survivors wind up in a shelter anyway.



Oh, well, I guess some pets just chose the WRONG owners...happens with
people too...!!!


As for the ones set free: Most house pets don't do well on their own
and are often injured in fights with predators or other animals, hit
by vehicles or infected with diseases, experts say.

Though acknowledging that many pets left at shelters are eventually
euthanized if they aren't adopted, "if the animal is put in a shelter,
at least she will have a chance and won't endure all that suffering,"
Zawistowski says.

The SPCA of Erie County, N.Y., is experiencing only a bump -- about two
a month -- in foreclosure pets, says executive director Barbara Carr.
But each is heartbreaking. She tells of a man who arrived at the
shelter this month saying he had to give up his cat and two small
dogs. When an employee walked outside to help him get the animals into
the shelter, "she discovered that he had arrived in a U-Haul loaded
with boxes and furniture. He had lost his home and had no place to go.
The very last thing he did was surrender his animals."



This moron should have spent some time reading the "fine print" in his
mortgage contract, in any case he's *way* too irresponsible to have
pets...



All three now have new homes.

HSUS and ASPCA have sent out advisories imploring people to plan for
their animals in case their finances nosedive. Also, "we're trying to
get the word out for people to take note of what's happening in the
economy, understand that animals are expensive, and if you don't have
much cushion, now may not be a good time to get a pet," says Stephanie
Shain of HSUS.


DUH...


Zawistowski hopes the question of foreclosure pets will prompt a
national discussion. Hurricane Katrina resulted in a recognition that
after natural disasters pets must be managed, "and we have, as a
nation, set up systems to do so," he says. It's important to see that
when people are displaced by economic disaster, "we also need to
manage the pets and should establish systems for that."


"Manage" pets...??? It's not like pets are productive. Livestock is
productive to the economy and so is "managed", pets are not...



--
Best
Greg

Gregory Morrow wrote:

cyberrat wrote:



But shelters that are experiencing an increase in pet intakes are
almost without exception in areas where the foreclosure rate is high.
Now there's growing concern that another, perhaps bigger wave of pet
surrenders is in the offing, the result of the worsening economy and
growing joblessness that will affect additional homeowners as well as
renters.

Some people are too stupid to have pets, there should be a "means
test" to have pets,

If you are mean, no pets.



--
"Question, two men starving to death decide to eat their hair like
spaghetti. Is that funny?"
"Hmmm, well, it depends on if by funny you want to make people
laugh."
-+Eddie Izzard and Joanna Lumley, "The Cat's Meow"