Why shelters hate the holidays

I’ve always read that animal shelters have a terrible time adopting out pets in the summer months because people are too busy vacationing and being active to think about adding an animal to the family.  A story in today’s Toronto Star shows how a well-meaning law in Quebec makes the problem even worse for shelters there—not only are people not adopting, they’re dumping their pets in record numbers.  In Quebec, all leases end on July 1st, to help families avoid the disruption of moving during the school year.  That makes July 1st a huge “moving day” in the province, and shelters are reporting that pets, especially cats, are being left at shelters in record numbers as people move and either chose not to take their animals with them, or aren’t permitted to have animals in their new residence.  In either case, shelter drop-offs have tripled as people prepare to move, and the numbers will only get worse as July 1st gets closer.  You can read the entire story here.

The situation in Quebec is unique, but all shelters experience a surge of inmates during the warm weather.  “Kitten season” means that the lives of older cats are on the line, too, as shelters need to make room for the young residents.  I probably don’t need to mention it to anyone reading this, but just in case:  if you’ve considered adding a new cat or dog to your family, now is a time when your help is really needed.  Even if you just want to foster for a few weeks or months, I know that any rescue group or shelter in your area would love to hear from you.  You would literally be saving a life.

Speaking of fostering, I made a really stupid mistake with Carlo last night.  Many people have posted on my blog and suggested that I try adding a bit of pumpkin to his food to try to ease his diarrhea.  I finally bought the pumpkin, gave him a bit on Sunday morning, and his stools did seem a bit bulkier.  I again gave him a tiny bit of pumpkin on Sunday evening, but I stupidly (I cannot stress that word enough!) gave him a new type of food as well.  He always eats Natural Balance Ultra, but I noticed that Bunny was starting to be a bit fussy about her food, so I gave them some Natural Balance Ocean Fish and Shrimp.  Ack!  Bad, bad, bad to give a cat with bowel problems a brand new food, with pumpkin to compound the problem.  I woke up this morning to discover that Carlo had explosive diarrhea during the night—thank goodness he still sleeps in an enclosed room with a linoleum floor.  The mess was literally splashed three feet up the walls, and it was everywhere.  There was even a big puddle in his bed, so the stuff just went right through him.  He seemed absolutely fine today, and ate well, and had no more problems, but I’ll never forget having to clean up after that disaster.  I usually do a lot of switching and swapping of kitten food to purposely make the kittens less finicky about tastes and textures, but I’ve never had a kitten with IBD (or whatever Carlo has) before.  I never want to relive that.

I still have one more food switch to make, but it’s to Iams Low-Residue, which the vet recommended for Carlo’s digestive problems.  It’s high-fiber, low-protein, so I’m going to start him off with a bit of it to see how it handles it.  I can’t imagine that it’s at all “rich” or “fatty”, and I doubt it will have the effect of Ocean Fish and Shrimp.  I really hate feeding him anything made by Iams, but I’m pretty desperate to get his bowel problems under control.  The problems cause him discomfort, and he’s stopped using the litterbox for pooping because of them.  I don’t know if the litterbox issue is “bad association” or just a lack of control, but I’ll never be able to adopt him out if he doesn’t use the litterbox properly.  The sooner he’s able to go to the bathroom normally, the sooner I can work on retraining him to have good litterbox habits.

Thus ends today’s poop report smile FYI, tomorrow I start a new, three-week continuing ed class called “Pain Management of the Canine and Feline”.  One week covers dogs, one week covers cats, and the third week covers alternative therapies like acupuncture.  If I pay attention, I might learn something!

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 06/05 at 01:52 AM

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  1. This isn’t really relevant to this post, but have you ever heard of http://www.goodsearch.com? From what I gather, it’s a search engine (powered by Yahoo, so pretty similar to any other search engine out there) and they donate to a charity designated by you every time you search.

    Just thought I’d mention in case it would be worthwhile for you to add your rescue as an organization that can receive donations...I know I’d be happy to list your rescue as the recipient when searching!

    Posted by Helena  on  06/05  at  06:58 AM
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