We can feel the holiday season lurking around the corner, hawking its sparkly greeting cards and bow tied boxes. We dread the day you start to see Christmas tree stands pop up on every corner and hear jingly music playing everywhere you go. As you can probably already tell, we're not big fans of this time of year. Don't get us wrong, we love the cheer that lights up chilly December, but to the directors of a no-kill animal shelter in NYC, holidays spell little more than disaster for thousands of momentarily-loved pets in Manhattan alone. Christmas is the main offender, but this goes for Valentine's Day, Easter, and birthdays, too.
It starts out innocently. Well-intentioned but severely uninformed gift givers buy puppies, kittens, rabbits, and so on for their kids and significant others. These cuddly presents always make a big splash, but the novelty wears off before long and those gifts end up abandoned at kill shelters or sold to even less qualified pet owners via Craigslist a few weeks or months later. (Want to see for yourself? Check out the Pets section on Craigslist around mid-January). Animal abandonment is a year round problem too, of course. Dogs and cats are dumped on the street, left at kill shelters, and worse every day. Summer is the "busy season," as puppy and kitten populations explode and those doing the abandoning think it's more humane to offload their furry family members when it's warm out. Animal abandonment is a huge, gross phenomenon, and it's why our zany rescue community exists. But like many non-profits, we we wish we didn't exist. That is to say we wish the world was a kinder, more informed place where there was no need for our services.
READ MORE: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robertshapiro/holidays-animal-abandonment_b_6111520.html
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