janj

My daughter is a second year college student. In an anatomy exam yesterday, she had to dissect a cat. She tells me the college gets their supply of animal corpses from a local shelter after the cats are euthanized

rossandvi

On a similar note in todays newspaper uk. there were pictures of live cats and dogs with huge fish hooks through their mouths WHY?..........Some French men are using them as SHARK BAITE'' my god'its deplorable and not against the law???.............What kind of world are we living in i wonder.

Angry White Pyjamas

Lets be honest, this is a throw away society to extremes. Buy something today cast it in the trash tomorrow for whatever reason. And this seems to be equally applied to pets, children, the sick and elderley and employees all as much as inanimate gadgets.

NJ_Dave

My wife bought her first cat when she was at college, and when she told them she was studying biology they almost didn't let her have the cat. She had to promise them that they didn't dissect cats in college. I guess that argument is null and void now

Winterwords

You may all hate me for saying this, but a member of my family had to shoot their own dog because when it turned vicious and started biting family members the vet said that he would not put the animal down until it had not bitten anyone for about 2 weeks (I forget the length of time). It was a pitbull cross that they had rescued. It broke their heart having to do it, but it was better than keeping her locked out in a cage out of the house for that length of time.

My family in the States regularly make donations to the Humane Society & we donate to animal charities over human ones (just call us odd ).

Angry White Pyjamas

One thing I dont get is why over here people are allowed to own pit bulls etc that are quite plainly not suitable as family pets. There are a number of dog breeds that should not be on general sale but are. They buy these fluffy little cuddly puppies and give them to their kids, dont train or socialise them properly, and then a year or so later are faced with a 130lbs of slavering muscled killer dog. Result: Shelters are overrun with viscious, traumatised and socially inept animals that have to be put down. Common sense anyone?

ladylisa

very true. This was one of the problems I had when trying to adopt a dog at the humane society most were pit bulls. Now I would never get a pit bull as I dont entirely trust the breed especially one that you couldn't trace its upbringing, but also my condo complex wouldn't allow them as per the terms of the lease.

Incidentally I ended up buying a dog from a breeder and it ended up getting attacked by a pit bull one night anyway. The girl that owned it used to live in an area that required it for her protection which was great then however she then moved to our leafy suburb with no enclosed areas and the animal thought that everywhere was his domain. In a 3 week period it attacked 3 dogs. She said she got rid of it I didnt ask any questions because she was quite upset.

Recently I have been thinking about Spaying my own dog and after seeing all the homeless animals after Katrina it has made up my mind.

AdobePinon

How we found our dog: http://www.petfinder.com/

He came out of a single wide with 26 dogs, a bunch of cats, and some geese. Plenty more where he came from...

dbj1000

I couldn't agree more, and this use of animals as accessories is at the heart of the problem with pet shelters here too, I think - if your dog is just another accessory then why would you want to have a "used" dog?

dbj1000

Those "French men" are residents of the Reunion Islands, and it's true that the story is quite horiffic (although note that the picture in the article is not of the dog in question, and is probably an archive picture of a dog that has had a nasty accident with a fish hook.

Oh, and it's in The Sun so it's just as likely to be some made-up Frog-bashing on a slow-news day!

Celsius

Read it on some animal shelter type website.

Here's some links-

http://www.thelantern.com/media/pape...x-260408.shtml
See the eighth paragraph.

http://www.stanford.edu/group/CATNET...agreement.html
End Note 13

http://www.ae.utexas.edu/cats/abandoned.html

There's plenty more to find with an internet search...

dunroving

In college towns, it can constitute a large portion of the population (although as you said, countrywide that's not the case).

Anecdotally, when I lived in Athens GA (population 100,000, of which 31,000 are students), I did see a lot of stray dogs wandering around aftef the end of the spring semester each year.

I now live in a town with a population of 60,000 (student population 20,000), and haven't seen it here so much - though coincidentally, I did find two dogs wandering around in my neighborhood woods (with collars) the same day as Spring Graduation last year. Both were in decent shape and looked like they had only recently been dumped (the woods are right next to the university intramural playing fields).

I took care of them over the weekend and took them to the local shelter (a "no-kill" facility) the following Monday. Neither dog was claimed (from the way they acted together you could tell they were best buddies), one was adopted within a couple of weeks, the other maybe a month later (it was a "black dog", and so more difficult to place with a new family).

Celsius

Maybe it wasn't clear but I'm suggesting that at the end of the university year, the number of abandoned pets peaks (obviously in cities where universities are located). I did not state or infer that university students are the main group that dumps pets nationwide...

BritGuyTN

if they aren't mature enough to have a pet then they certainly aren;t mature enough to go to university

Leslie

I just thought it was an interesting remark. It was obviously based on your personal experience. I live in a city with two universities and a very large military base. The rescue operation that my sister and her husband run here find the majority of their "dumps" to be from military personnel who are transferring. That is based on my experience.