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Animal shelters across the country have been battling a deacades-long pandemic of sorts dealing with the consequences of unvaccinated and unsterilized pets, from surrenders of pets to animal shelters to the needless euthanasia of homeless pets. It’s taken millions of pets’ lives and a significant mental toll on the people who work every day to save them.
Many foundations give millions of dollars in grants to local organizations so they can offer free and affordable services to pet owners with limited resources. San Antonio-based Petco Love Foundation, recently announced they are giving away one million vaccines to their animal welfare partners to give away to pets in need.
With vaccines in the news, this announcement seems like a timely reminder that pets need vaccines, like rabies, distemper and parvo, to protect them from life-threatening diseases, too.
“It is heartbreaking when any pet suffers or dies from a disease that could have been prevented,” said Susanne Kogut, Petco Love’s president. “It is further exacerbated when unvaccinated pets come into busy shelter kennels, where these deadly diseases can spread quickly, resulting in multiple deaths, skyrocketing expenses and hindering saving pet lives. By creating greater awareness and making this crucial preventive care more accessible to those not currently receiving these lifesaving vaccines, we can prevent the dangerous spread of disease.”
Because unvaccinated pets are the most likely pets to be surrendered to an animal shelter, the odds increase that a shelter will experience an outbreak of parvo or distemper at some point. While shelters vaccinate pets upon intake, a dog or cat may already have distemper or parvo and not show symptoms. Worse yet, animals that are old, ill or unvaccinated are more at risk of catching these diseases.
Just recently, a North Texas animal shelter had an outbreak of distemper, which resulted in the euthanasia of more than 30 infected dogs, the inability to take in dogs from the public for weeks and a halt on dog adoptions until the shelter was free of the disease.
Animal shelter staff, already exhausted from the daily work of asking people to get their pets fixed and vaccinated, and dealing with the fallout when they don’t, are often pushed to the brink when a disease outbreaks like this happen. And it’s preventable, as there are free and affordable resources available for pet owners to take care of their pets.
Send your pet questions, tips, and stories to [email protected]. You can read the Animals Matter blog at http://blog.mysanantonio.com/animals and follow her at @cathymrosenthal.
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