Economy Blamed for Pet Abandonment

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Grainne Dhu said:
It's a tough, scary situation to be in. I honestly believe that until someone is placed in that situation, they really and truly do not know how they will react. No pet owner wants to think they would leave their pets behind! But until they're in the situation, they don't understand all the forces at work. It's scary, chaotic and confusing.
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I would hide Sophia under my blouse. I WOULD NOT leave her. I simply would not. She is loved like a child. She sleeps on my pillow beside me every night. :bedtime:
 
I would probably be called insane if I listed my growing family of pets. We love them dearly and if they became a financial drain, we'd do away w/ cable, eating out and other lavish spending before we ever relinquished a pet. I knew some people who'd rather spend their money on beer and cigarettes than their pets. Heck, there's people that can't even prioritize the importance of their child let alone their dog. How pathetic is that!
 
kahskye said:
I would probably be called insane if I listed my growing family of pets. We love them dearly and if they became a financial drain, we'd do away w/ cable, eating out and other lavish spending before we ever relinquished a pet. I knew some people who'd rather spend their money on beer and cigarettes than their pets. Heck, there's people that can't even prioritize the importance of their child let alone their dog. How pathetic is that!
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I sooo agree Kahskye.:blowkiss:
 
I share the same opinion as the rest of you. Pets are family--period. They go where I go.

Just like leaving behind one of the kids is out of the question, so is leaving behind a pet. If I couldnt keep to that commitment for the life of the pet, I wouldnt have gotten the pet in the first place
 
kahskye said:
I would probably be called insane if I listed my growing family of pets. We love them dearly and if they became a financial drain, we'd do away w/ cable, eating out and other lavish spending before we ever relinquished a pet. I knew some people who'd rather spend their money on beer and cigarettes than their pets. Heck, there's people that can't even prioritize the importance of their child let alone their dog. How pathetic is that!
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'zactly! I'd cut everything off and live in a tent if it was the only way to be with my babies.
The worst thing that can happen here is tornados and we ride them out with the fuzzies. We stick together!
 
I hate to break it to you guys but this is the biggest time of year for people to dump their animals. I worked at a vet clinic for six years so I got to hear all the horrible stories. It's heartbreaking that people drop off their pets at the shelter JUST so they can go on vacation or drop them off in the country or simply leave them. I'm not saying it isn't the economy for some but I think all of us pet lovers here have stated there is a way to cut back and keep your pets, if not, then find a home for them! If you have to give up your pet and the last resort is the shelter, I have no problem with that but I think it's sick to abandon the pet. If you don't feel any more than that for a helpless animal, then DON'T ever have one! Please don't yell at me about people who have to abandon their home in an emergency, there are all kinds of scenarios. I'm talking about people who abandon their pets on purpose.
 
Taximom said:
We only have two guinea pigs and when money was flowing in...I never thought about their upkeep. When the budget tightened I started keeping track of how much we spent on their care! I was amazed. They are like our children though, so they won't be affected of course.

I feel sorry for large animal owners (horses, etc) because I know the cost of just hay has increased a lot. :(
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Do you buy your hay from the pet store or do you go to a feed lot store? We have two guinea pigs too. Lately, I've been buying from the pet store, but I have bought a bale of hay, which cost me about $5 and lasted almost a year! The timothy hay is about $10/bag and I'm lucky if it lasts a week and a half.

Laurie
 
Amraann said:
That is an awful thing to go through but in that type of life or death situation, those in charge of rescuing as many people as possible simply have no choice.
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I agree...I hope to never be in that situation. But if that were to happen, I could not justify staying behind with the pets and keeping my child with me...risking her life. Nor could I send my child on without me and risk being separated from her for God knows how long. Or dying and leaving her without me. Even if she is 13 and thinks she doesn't need me lol!

We recently had a horrible storm rip through our city, and my daughter was home alone. I was in the western part of the city, so it hit me first, and I swear I thought my car was going to go flying off the road. All the street signs, power lines, power poles, street lights, and the gas station roof broke down or flew off right in front of me.

I called my daughter and told her to run the the basement as fast as she could...to grab the dogs if she could, but don't go looking for the cats. She got both dogs, and one of our 3 cats and our two guinea pigs were already down there. She didn't want to go down w/o the cats, but I told her they'd be fine and we'd find them. Of course, I don't know if we would have been able to do so had the worst happened. Fortunately, we still have a roof...damage, but a roof! And everyone was safe!
 
OK, I have never been evacuated, so I am just asking to try to be less ignorant. If you're being evacuated, why can't you take your pets?

I mean, I know some folks were being helicoptered off of the roof, and I can see why you can't take them. Or like the poster who wasn't home when the storm hit... But if someone is standing at your door telling you to get out now, why wouldn't a person just load Spot and Fluff in the car and get out of town?

I imagine there's some element of this situation that I'm just not grasping. Thanks in advance for enlightening me!
 
hipmamajen said:
OK, I have never been evacuated, so I am just asking to try to be less ignorant. If you're being evacuated, why can't you take your pets?

I mean, I know some folks were being helicoptered off of the roof, and I can see why you can't take them. Or like the poster who wasn't home when the storm hit... But if someone is standing at your door telling you to get out now, why wouldn't a person just load Spot and Fluff in the car and get out of town?

I imagine there's some element of this situation that I'm just not grasping. Thanks in advance for enlightening me!
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If you have somewhere to go, I imagine you would do that. But if you have to go to a shelter, you cant take animals. I know of some people that did have their own car, but they were not allowed to drive past the shelter, for whatever reason...I guess there were safety issues where they needed to go to get out of state. They ended up sneaking around the National Guard to get out of the state. And they did have their animals with them, which is why they did that, risking their lives. Had they been caught, they would have been arrested and detained.

My parents evacuated for Hurricane Rita. Many people never made it out of Houston because the freeway was so packed, they couldn't move, and they ran out of gas. My parents had somewhere to go...we have family in northern Texas. But what was normally a 5 hour drive took close to 18 hours, and they were darn lucky to find gasoline before they ran out. There were no hotel rooms anywhere.

Fortunately, they don't have animals.

I think it's the people who wait too late to evacuate that have to make the choice to leave their animals. My parents left 24 hours before their area was forced to evacuate. They had been told they wouldn't need to, but things got worse. There were a lot of people who left whose houses would not have been in danger, but they would have likely lost power for days, and the stores were empty of most food and clean water.

It's a really hectic and panicky situation, even if you have planned.
 
Thank you, Wallflower. I knew there was something I wasn't "getting." Scary stuff, that.
 
we live in a culture that loves their pets, especially dogs, and encourages everyone to have one or two. Commercials and television and movies, about children and pets and how great it is to have them together. Unfortunately, we live in a society where pets have been banned from any kind of rental institution, mostly becuase of the fear of bad pet hygiene and bad past tenants.
Most of the time now, you are not renting from a person, with whom you could make special arrangements, you are renting from a financial institution that regards renters as a paycheck, nothing more, and they do not take chances on pets.

if they made a sign that said 'no children allowed' they would be shut down by the government, but since pets are not looked at as children in the eye of the law, its not only not illegal to discriminate against pet owners, it's practically required in the business of rental real estate. The number of apt complexes that will take pet owners is pretty low compared to to the total.

in scottsdale, if you get a two bedroom apartment for 1200 dollars per month (this is not extreme for scottsdale az) they charge 'pet rent' of around 100-150 per month. This at least is an improvement over no pets allowed and 'you can bring your pets if you put an additional 500 down' on top of first and last months rent plus security.


the point of this post is that just becuase people are dropping their pets off at the shelter, it doesn't mean they are bad people, there's a double standard here, we encourage people to have pets and do everything possible to make sure that nothing ever gets rented to a pet owner.


thats my .02


~lwr~
 
lightwaveryder said:
we live in a culture that loves their pets, especially dogs, and encourages everyone to have one or two. Commercials and television and movies, about children and pets and how great it is to have them together. Unfortunately, we live in a society where pets have been banned from any kind of rental institution, mostly becuase of the fear of bad pet hygiene and bad past tenants.
Most of the time now, you are not renting from a person, with whom you could make special arrangements, you are renting from a financial institution that regards renters as a paycheck, nothing more, and they do not take chances on pets.

if they made a sign that said 'no children allowed' they would be shut down by the government, but since pets are not looked at as children in the eye of the law, its not only not illegal to discriminate against pet owners, it's practically required in the business of rental real estate. The number of apt complexes that will take pet owners is pretty low compared to to the total.

in scottsdale, if you get a two bedroom apartment for 1200 dollars per month (this is not extreme for scottsdale az) they charge 'pet rent' of around 100-150 per month. This at least is an improvement over no pets allowed and 'you can bring your pets if you put an additional 500 down' on top of first and last months rent plus security.


the point of this post is that just becuase people are dropping their pets off at the shelter, it doesn't mean they are bad people, there's a double standard here, we encourage people to have pets and do everything possible to make sure that nothing ever gets rented to a pet owner.


thats my .02


~lwr~
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You are right!
I have a lot of dogs myself but for our rental properties, NO WAY would I allow them to have pets. Why? Because from our many many past experiences, the pet owners are not responsible pet owners.

We had a single lady living with her 2 yorkies. She gave them their own room and it was totally trashed and it smelled horrible. She never cleaned up after them and they destroyed that bedroom. I was soooo insanely p'd off at this heifer that I took her straight to court where we got our money from her but it still made me very leary of having pets.

Then we had the cat lady. She said she only had one cat, and let me tell you something, I NEVER BELIEVE anyone who says they only have one cat on a rental application. Some people collect cats like buttons. She had 9 by the time we evicted her.

We've had owners of pit bulls, where the animal was chained on the property line and it bit a child. We almost got sued over that. We had a lady with 2 pits in our house and they tore up the cabinets. Nasty cats and owners where all the carpets had to be replaced.
It is unfair to us, as landlords to have to clean up after other peoples pets. So now, we do have a no pet policy.
 
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