USA Today on foreclosure and pet crisis -- 3/25/08

March 26, 2008

A story we saw recently on ABC's Nightline is today, Tuesday, March 25, in the US's most widely circulated newspaper. USA Today includes an article, by Sharon L. Peters, headed, "Foreclosures slam doors on pets, too; Shelters in hard-hit areas report a surge in animals being abandoned." (Pg 4d)It opens:"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 article includes some heartbreaking scenarios. We read:"The Pennsylvania program is addressing one of animal welfare experts' greatest concerns: that pet owners, worried that their animals will be euthanized at the shelter, are setting them loose or leaving them in empty houses and garages with some food and water. Often the abandoned animals aren't found for days or weeks and are dead or dying, they say. And ultimately the survivors wind up in a shelter anyway."You'll find the whole article on line

athttp://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-03-24-foreclosures-pets_N.htmCatherine Podojil sent it along (thanks Cath!) with a note asking if folks had noticed "that other species are getting a lot more attention these days" in the media. Oh yes! And positive feedback for that attention encourages even more of it, so please thank USA Today for the story. You can scroll down the web page cited above and post a comment after the article, or, better yet, send a letter to the editor. In your letter you might wish to address spay-neuter, or adoption, or any issue regarding human treatment of other species. USA Today takes letters at http://tinyurl.com/hvsuz Yours and the animals',Karen Dawn(DawnWatch is an animal advocacy media watch that looks at animal issues in the media and facilitates one-click responses to the relevant media outlets. You can learn more about it, and sign up for alerts at http://www.DawnWatch.com. You may forward or reprint

DawnWatch alerts if you do so unedited -- leave DawnWatch in the title and include this parenthesized tag line. If somebody forwards DawnWatch alerts to you, which you enjoy, please help the list grow by signing up. It is free.)Please go to www.ThankingtheMonkey.com to read advance reviews of Karen Dawn's new book, "Thanking the Monkey: Rethinking the Way we Treat Animals” and watch the fun celebrity studded promo video.To discontinue DawnWatch alerts go to http://www.DawnWatch.com/nothanks.php-------You are d to DawnWatch using the following address:dogs_goodTue Mar 25 22:13:01 2008

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