Blaming Animal Shelters for Euthanasia is Like Blaming Libraries for Illiteracy

Animal shelters exist to save lives, provide refuge, and offer second chances to animals who have nowhere else to go. Yet, paradoxically, they are often vilified when difficult decisions like euthanasia are made. Criticizing shelters for euthanizing animals is as misguided as blaming libraries for illiteracy. Both are institutions created to address societal issues; they did not cause them.

The Root of the Problem: Overpopulation and Economic Challenges

Animal shelters don’t create the problems they work tirelessly to solve. Euthanasia in shelters is often a heartbreaking consequence of factors like the increasing costs of pet care, pet overpopulation, irresponsible breeding, abandonment, lack of affordable pet-friendly housing, and failure to spay and neuter pets. Shelters are the safety nets catching the fallout of these issues, with not enough resources to address them all.

Consider this: when a library is surrounded by a community struggling with literacy, it doesn’t mean the library has failed. The library’s role is to provide access to resources and support education, but it cannot single-handedly erase societal illiteracy. Illiteracy is largely the result of systemic issues such as poverty, educational inequality, and lack of access to quality education.

Similarly, animal shelters fight societal challenges such as economic challenges, pet abandonment, overpopulation, competition from breeders, and owners who allow their pets to roam. Shelters provide temporary refuge and solutions for homeless animals, community intervention programs and support, humane education and outreach, low-cost vaccines and spay/neuter surgeries, and other programs designed to reduce euthanasia. However, they work with finite human and financial resources and cannot solve all the problems that contribute to pet homelessness alone.

Limited Resources, Unlimited Need

Shelters are often underfunded, understaffed, and overwhelmed. Many operate with limited space, finite budgets, and growing demands. Despite this, they work to house, rehabilitate, reunite, and rehome as many animals as possible. However, when resources are stretched too thin, the heartbreaking decision to euthanize becomes a tragic reality.

Blaming shelters for euthanasia ignores the systemic challenges they face. It’s not the shelter that failed; it’s the collective failure of society to prevent animal homelessness in the first place. Just as it’s unfair to expect libraries to singlehandedly teach an entire community to read, it’s unrealistic to expect shelters to eliminate animal euthanasia without support.

The Real Solution: Community Action

If we want to reduce euthanasia in shelters for reasons of time or space to house the animals, to only those animals that are irremediably suffering or a danger to the public, we must address its root causes:

1. Spaying and Neutering: Pet owners must commit to sterilizing their pets to prevent unwanted litters and reduce their pets’ desire to roam in search of mates. Affordable spay/neuter programs are vital to breaking the cycle of overpopulation.
2. Adoption Over Buying: Choosing to adopt from shelters rather than buying from breeders or pet stores reduces the demand for commercial breeding, which often contributes to animal homelessness.
3. Education and Responsibility: Educating communities about responsible pet ownership can reduce abandonment and neglect.
4. Support for Shelters: Volunteering, donating, fostering, and advocating for shelters can provide them with the resources needed to save more lives. Demonizing animal shelters and the people who work there only drives people away from adopting or supporting their efforts to provide more care for the pets they serve, further adding to their challenges.
5. Pet-Friendly Housing: There must be more affordable pet-friendly housing that allows large dogs. One of the main reasons large dogs are surrendered to our animal care centers is because the landlord won’t allow them.
6. Affordable Veterinary Care: The rising costs of veterinary care, often driven by private equity firms, has priced animal care out of reach for many people. Developing financially reasonable pet health care plans, while not penalizing private practice veterinarians, must be made available so people can afford to keep their pets.

Shelters Are the Solution, Not the Problem

When we blame shelters for euthanasia, we risk alienating the very organizations trying to make a difference. Shelters and their staff are often the last line of defense for animals who have been failed by humans. They take on the emotional and physical burden of caring for homeless animals, knowing they can’t save them all but fighting every day to save as many as possible.

Imagine blaming a library for not fixing literacy issues in an entire city. It would be absurd—the library is part of the solution, not the source of the problem. Similarly, animal shelters don’t create euthanasia; they work to reduce it under the most difficult circumstances.

Let’s Support Shelters, Not Shame Them

Rather than pointing fingers at shelters, let’s look at how we, as a society, can do better. By addressing the root causes of animal homelessness and providing the support shelters desperately need, we can reduce euthanasia and give animals the lives they deserve.

Blame doesn’t save lives. Action does. Let’s stand with shelters and work toward a world where every animal has a home—and where libraries, shelters, and other community resources are celebrated for the good they do, not criticized for society’s failures.

 

Marcia Mayeda

You can subscribe to Marcia’s blog here: https://animalcare.lacounty.gov/directors_blog/

The Los Angeles County Animal Care Foundation is a nonprofit 501(c)3 charity that raises money to support DACC in its mission of saving animals and keeping pets and families together. Learn more at www.lacountyanimals.org.