Recession is taking toll onshelters

The Humane Society of Elkhart County is in crisis mode. Ann Reel, the shelter's executive director, told MSNBC, "In one month alone, the shelter had to euthanize 600 animals."

They're not alone.

In recent weeks, city papers from Baltimore to Fresno have run stories on the impact of the economic recession on animal shelters. That impact is breathtaking.

Since it began in December 2007, the recession has taken a suffocating toll on animal shelters in the form of dwindling donations, adoptions and volunteers — with many people now in need of a second or third paycheck and no free hours to volunteer. At the same time, the housing meltdown from coast to coast led to a staggering increase in pet drop-offs and abandonment. The two formed the perfect storm.

Add to that the fear of looming cuts in government budgets and it's clear the use of the word "crisis" is not hyperbole.

Barring a fiscal miracle, New Leash on Life (www.newleash.org), an animal shelter in Newhall, Calif., will close its doors this month after 12 years and thousands of adoptions.

Just 20 miles down the road, Dawn Smith, president and founder of Daphneyland (www.daphneyland.com), the nation's largest basset hound rescue, told the Associated Press the rescue is garnering only half of the monthly monetary donations it needs to survive. Underscoring the urgency, Smith said, "Conditions will only get worse during the holidays."

Why? The failure rate on pet adoptions during the holidays is through the roof. Christmas stirs urges for warm woolen mittens and whiskers on kittens. Then the holidays pass, the mittens go in the drawer, and that kitten or puppy isn't so cute anymore.

In response to this crisis, nonprofits and city-funded shelters are working overtime to expand their donor bases and implement new fundraising ideas. Many of the nation's Humane Societies currently offer pet-assistance programs that provide free pet food to owners who are struggling financially. In response to the housing crisis, the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals created a program called "Good-Home Guarantee." They vow to keep and care for your pet — free of charge — for as long as it takes you to find a home. Programs like these keep pets and owners together, thus avoiding otherwise unnecessary abandonment.

But the single most essential program to shelters remains spay/neuter. According to Stephen L. Zawistowski, executive vice president for national programs and science adviser for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, "No single social welfare group has made a greater impact on a problem than the people working in animal shelters," emphasizing that their success has everything to do with spaying and neutering.