Over 50% of dogs entering UK animal shelters are not spayed or neutered. As a result, over 2 million puppies are born every year, and 600,000 of them will die before their first birthday.
Puppies are cute. It’s natural to want one. The problem is that unless you have a responsible plan for your new pet, you’re creating another mouth to feed and another life to care for. Also, you’re increasing the demand for pets in animal shelters.
Shelters are overcrowded now because people don’t spay or neuter their pets. That means shelters are full of animals that need homes.
But it also means there are more homeless animals out there competing for those homes. Unless something changes, this puppy overpopulation will only get worse as time goes on.
The pet overpopulation statistics are devastating but it can be changed if every pet owner could take action to stop their dog prom reproducing unnecessarily.
The number of stray cats and dogs arriving at shelters in the United Kingdom has increased by 6% over the last 10 years.
There are two primary reasons for this increase. One is that there are more stray dogs and cats. It’s because there are now more pets in the UK than ever before. There are 24 million dogs and 10 million cats living in British households these days.
Secondly, euthanasia rates have increased. Shelters are only allowed to house animals for a set time, after which they must euthanize them. They would rather not euthanize at all, but they often have no choice because of limited shelter space.
How long does a dog live in an animal shelter?
A dog stays in an animal shelter for five to seven days.
Dogs can be at risk for disease, injury, and violence while living in the shelter. The risk of dying also increases for dogs as they age. Thus, shelters may not keep them for long.
However, in cases where a pet owner voluntarily takes their dog to a shelter temporarily but delays getting it back, the shelter can keep it a little longer.
100,000 dogs and cats facing euthanasia as people return adopted pets to animal shelters
Lost, stray and abandoned dogs are sent to pounds such as this all over the UK, where they are kept for just seven days. Then, if no one claims them, or rescues can’t offer a space, they are put down – almost 9,000 of them last year, according to the Dogs Trust.
In the US, the overall rate of shelter euthanasia is 5.6 per 1,000 people. But in the UK, the rate is 0.2. … This is less than a fourth of the pet sterilization rate in the United States.