In today’s society it is common to overlook major issues occurring abroad for the sake of comfort. Therefore, it should come to no surprise that problems occurring in our own backyards are purposely overlooked as well. One of these unsavory occurrences is that of animal neglect. Animal abuse and neglect comes in many forms, one of which is active abuse. Active abuse is defined as the intentional infliction of physical harm, and is often seen as the hitting or kicking of an animal.
Another form of abuse is that of passive neglect. In the case of passive neglect, abuse is not intentional nd is often the result of lack of information or knowledge. The most prevalent of these forms of abuse is that of the latter. In most cases owners have a lack of knowledge as to what caring for a pet implies. This culminates into an older pet left to fend for itself once its owners grew tired of caring for it. Once the pet has been abandoned, it is prone to injury, exposure, and starvation.
Thousands of volunteers work tirelessly year round to aid and alleviate the suffering of these abandoned animals, but they unfortunately cannot keep up with the unceasing demand of abandoned and neglected nimals. For these reasons and many more it is essential for solutions to be proposed and enacted in order to eliminate neglect. The foremost and most financially feasible solution is that of education. It is essential that prospective pet owners be made aware of the cost and amount of time it that goes into raising a pet. This can be done simply by giving information packets to prospective owners before their purchase of a pet.
These packets would include information such as the average cost of a pet throughout the lifespan and the accepted amount of care expected of said pet. Therefore, people might come to understand some of the responsibility that comes with owning a pet. However, this is unlikely as the care and wellbeing of the animals being purchased at a pet store is often the last thing thought about during a sale. As profit is prioritized in pet shops, another solution must be proposed. As the previous solution discussed would ultimately fail do to human apathy, a second and more effective plan would be to enlist the help of animal shelters.
When prospective owners come to a shelter to adopt a pet, information should be given to them as in the afore mentioned solution. As volunteers at a shelter would be more inclined to care about the well-being of an animal, this solution would be much more effective. Another solution to this issue is to provide classes to communities on various aspects of pet care. An example of this would be a groomer coming in to teach a class about basic grooming techniques such as brushing out medium to long haired dogs a minimum of two times a week to prevent matting, which is a serious health hazard most often seen as a side effect of passive neglect.
Obedience classes could also be offered as many people abandon misbehaved pets. As you can see, it is a group effort of many volunteers to help alleviate the problem of abandoned and neglected pets. In order to pay for these efforts, fundraisers can be planned and executed to raise money. Because these classes are most often performed by a single volunteer assisted by a few other volunteers, cost will be relatively low and thus effective. As well as these efforts, another strategy could and should be implemented.
This strategy would be to offer low cost spay and neuter clinics in communities every year. By implementing this plan, the population of unwanted or stray animals would be rastically reduced and thus, the amount of neglect and abuse of animals would also plummet. While the cost of spaying and neutering is astronomical compared to that of community educational classes, it is however more effective to prevent overpopulation and the inadequate people from coming into ownership of an animal that they are not prepared to care for.
More ever, it is more effective to spay and neuter animals than to spend tax dollars on overcrowded shelters. Veterinarians would set up temporary surgery rooms as well as temporary recovering shelters for the pets in order to insure their recovery rom surgery. To reiterate, while this being the more expensive of the options, it is by far the most effective. Therefore, in order to stop animal neglect while it is happening, one must have patience. If a person suspects that animal cruelty or neglect may be happening, they must first wait and observe the animal and person in question.
For example, if a person were to notice a dog chained outside with no food, water, or shelter, they might assume that the animal is being neglected. In order to prove this however, one must watch and make sure that the dog really is being neglected, and it’s not just utside for a little while in order to use the restroom. If the animal is indeed being neglected, meaning no food, water, or shelter has been offered to the animal within a twenty-four hour period, and then it becomes appropriate to inform the authorities.
It is never a good idea to apprehend the person in question or to confiscate the neglected animal by yourself, as the resulting confrontation may become dangerous. Instead wait for the authorities to come and assess the situation and for them to determine if the animal needs to be removed from the residence. Lastly, banning people from animal ownership after an abuse r neglect allegation has been filed and they have been convicted could greatly improve the neglect and abandonment of animals.
Convicted felons who victimized humans must follow protocol and abstain from interacting with their victims, so why is this different in the case of animal cruelty? Once a conviction has been made, these people who endangered animal lives by neglecting and abandoning them, will not be allowed to legally ascertain another animal. It is often there is a cycle involved in the abandonment of animals. This cycle is as follows: A person or family will obtain a young animal without thinking about the are that it will require.
The person will adore and care for the animal while it is still young and cute, but as soon as the pet displays an undesired behavior or is no longer cute in the eyes of the owner, they will then leave their pet outside and barely acknowledge it, or they will simply abandon it. The person will then obtain another young animal and perpetuate the cycle. This culminates into the large bulk of overpopulation of stray animals in the streets. As it can be ascertained, the predicament of abandoned and neglected pets can easily be solved by education and the sterilization of animals.
If we were to take the initiative to educate people about the amount of care they are taking on when acquiring a pet, they may decide not to do so. By accomplishing this, the problem of abandoned and neglected pets would nearly be eradicated, as the problem of irresponsible pet ownership would be depleted. The perpetuate cycle of replaceable pets would also come to an end do to the spaying and neutering of pets. Thus there would be fewer pets to replace the abandoned animals with and the previous owners would be forced to either not acquire an unnecessary pet in the first place, or to care for their existing pet as they should.
