They’re arriving by the thousands every month, homeless, hapless victims of foreclosure. Family pets, their lives upended by the ravaged finances of their owners, are landing in animal shelters in large numbers in some parts of the country.
The precise numbers are unknown, because there is no nationwide standard for recording foreclosure pets and because many owners who surrender animals at shelters tell personnel only that they are “moving” and give no specifics.
But shelters that are experiencing an increase in pet intakes are almost without exception in areas where the foreclosure rate is high. Now there’s growing concern that another, perhaps bigger wave of pet surrenders is in the offing, the result of the worsening economy and growing joblessness that will affect additional homeowners as well as renters.
“The fate of people’s pets tracks with their own financial fate,” says the ASPCA’s Steve Zawistowski. He adds that although some shelters have been largely unaffected, “there are pockets” where so many homeowners are losing their homes that the number of pets relinquished to shelters, turned loose or abandoned is increasing dramatically. The pockets probably will spread with a deteriorating economy, he says.
Source: USA TodayÂ
