Wednesday, February 10, 2010

The more things change it seem the more some things stay the same : (((

Its no secret that this middle aged granny has a very special spot in my heart for senior pets. Its impossible to visit the homeless pet site without being presented with some of the older, but wiser, pets in this province in need of a good home.
Senior pets are particularly vulnerable when they become homeless. People refuse to see how much love they have left to offer and focus instead on potential health issues and the possibility of big vet bills.
So why do I spend so much energy on the seniors Because slowly but surely, .... one kind heart at a time, people are discovering the unsung joys of senior pet adoption. Elderpets bring a mellow maturity to the table that can easily overrule the charms of a puppy or kitten.
I am working on the finishing touches of my own very special valentine for the senior pets in ns ... a special site of their own ... which will soon be up at http://www.nsseniorpets.com/ . To go along with that, for the last couple of days, I have also been updating the Senior Pet Blog,
http://nsseniorpetproject.blogspot.com/ , to include all the senior pets in this province listed on petfinder.
There are a couple of lovely dogs at the Yarmouth SPCA, another couple of lovelies listed with East Coast German Shepherd Rescue , another couple of sweet seniors at the LA Animal Shelter , a beautiful gal at the Metro Shelter, a dear old fellow at the TLC Animal Shelter .... along with a handsome marmalade fellow at S.H.A.I.D, a beautiful tabby at the Valley Animal Shelter and a lovely tuxedo gal with P.E.T. PROJECTS
Pretty much every other RESCUE GROUP and BREED RESCUE in this province have listed lovely seniors during the last couple of years. ( the topic of how all homeless pets over the age of five were, and sometimes still are, automatically killed as being unadoptable is an Unhappy Tail to pursue at another time. )
Every rescue marches to their own beat, so in order to keep the homeless pet site current, I do site updates at least a couple of times a day. This morning, for instance, there was a lovely new lad named KD to add to the site. Generally that's how it works ... a couple come on ... one or two come off.
A couple of weeks ago, ALL the listings for the Cape Breton SPCA came off at the same time. Sadly, once again there have been no replacements on their site, just the forlorn little notice that Sorry, there are no pets matching your exact search criteria.
Last year the Cape Breton SPCA took in a total of 3966 pets. After you subtract the 259 that were reclaimed by their owners and the 299 that were transferred out to other organizations, that still left a whopping 3408 pets. If you divide that figure by 52 weeks in a year ... that means they took in an average of 65 pets a week last year.
By their own admission, they are the SPCA Branch with the highest intake in the province. So it would only make sense for them to be using their Petfinder listings properly, instead of listing a token amount of The "Shut Up Dogs" .
Petfinder is a free service .... one that the Cape Breton branch is already signed for. It will be VERY interesting to see the stats that they cook up for this year.
What time is it? If the Cape Breton Branch really has started down a better path, if they really are tired of killing so many animals... then it is time for them to list all their adoptable pets, all of the time.

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