Why do Some Animal Shelters Kill Pets

There are basically two types of animal shelter; no kill animal shelters, and the kind of shelter that does euthanasia when they are full, these shelters are called open admission animal shelter.

No kill animal shelters have the option of refusing to accept animals when they are full, or, in some cases, if it is not an animal they are particularly interested in helping. You may note that some no kill shelters focus only on helping highly adoptable animals, while others tend to take only those who are less adoptable the ones that would not get adopted from an open admission shelter and would probably be euthanized. Some no-kill shelters are breed specific or focus on special needs animals, such as senior pets. Many no kill animal shelters take only highly adoptable pets and try to rehome them so they can save others.

All animal shelters have limited capacity; the no kill shelter simply refuses to take in any new animals when they are full. They usually have a waiting list for people who wish to surrender their pets. They may have some pets living in foster home situations, but ultimately when they do not have room to accept more pets they do have the option of turning pets away.

In contrast, the open admission shelters cannot turn away any pet that is brought to them. With limited space, and animals being admitted daily, they are often forced to euthanize some animals every week, or more often.

The United States Human Society has reported that shelters in the USA are forced to euthanize over 4 million pets every year because more aniamsl are brought to the shelters than are adopted out. If every shelter in the US were to become a no kill shelter that would mean they would need to have spaces for more than 4 million more animals, and spaces for 4 million more the next year, and so on.  This boils down to each state having to house 90,000 extra animals every year.

Euthanasia is the sad, but only way of dealing with the fact that more animals are born than there are homes for.

Until pet owners are more responsible, and have their pets spayed or neutered, there will always be more pets than there are homes for. As it is not practical to warehouse an additional 90,000 pets each year, every year. As such anmal shelters are forced to euthanize the excess animals to make way for the flood that come into their care on a weekly basis.

People who assume animal shelters enjoy euthanzing animals are wrong, the staff would much rather have the pets adopted out to good homes. Open admission shelters simply do not have the choice. 

People should also note that in most areas where animals are brought to the shelter they are held for at least 72 hours allowing an owner to claim them if they were lost.  After that, and with owner surrended pets, an assessment is made on the adoptability of the pet with younger, cuter, more unique, friendly, pets going up for adoption, and once in adoption the animals often have 1-3 months to try to get a home, depending on the shelter.