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In reply to the discussion: I hope everyone who thinks it's OK to "just breed her once" or "just buy one dog" reads this all the [View all]SheilaT
(23,156 posts)being essentially dishonest. No, they do not euthanize. But they usually severely limit what animals they will take in. I know that there are some which actually do provide life-long homes no matter what, but others just quietly turn over to other shelters the ones they know won't be adopted. The reality is, there can only be a tiny fraction of shelters that can call themselves "no-kill" because there are simply so many millions of excess cats and dogs that there is no way to keep them all alive. Not to mention feral cats that cannot live with humans, or dogs who have been so abused or badly trained that they cannot live with humans.
The main reason there are so many excess cats and dogs is that a lot of humans are totally irresponsible. I'm not talking about those (like some who have posted here) who have some huge change in their life and they can no longer keep an animal. I'm talking about the ones who mistakenly believe that a female cat or dog must have at least one litter to be somehow whole. Or they fantasize that they can keep the female inside and away from amorous males. Or that their children deserve to witness "the miracle of birth" without remembering that there will be puppies or kittens around afterwards.
And if, as has been mentioned here, shelters in some parts of the country have a distinct shortage of adoptable dogs, that means that in those parts of the country spaying and neutering is being highly effective, and not very many people are needing to give up good dogs they can no longer keep.