Animal Neglect Spotlights Animal-Care Crisis

NORFOLK, Va., Jan. 29, 2018 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- As people on a fixed (or without any) income struggled, PETA stepped in, spending over $2.5 million in 2017 to provide supplies and veterinary services—including medical care, spay/neuter services, doghouses, bedding, food, counseling to help people retain animals they would otherwise have given up, and free euthanasia services for ill, aged, aggressive, and dying animals. PETA served more than 25,000 animals in over 250 cities in southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina.

PETA is appealing to the government and residents to help solve this "crisis of care" in a video available at PETA.org, which urges everyone to adopt from shelters rather than buying animals, spay or neuter them, help others without funds to do the same, look out for neglected animals, and recognize that curbing the homeless-animal crisis begins with prevention. Millions of dogs and cats end up in U.S. shelters annually, while others are dumped on the street.

In 2017, PETA's work in impoverished areas included the following:

• Sterilizing more than 13,300 dogs and cats on its mobile clinics, preventing millions of animals from being born into homelessness
• Transporting—free of charge—more than 1,200 animals to and from its clinics to aid guardians without means
• Providing more than 3,000 families with free veterinary and counseling services
• Providing more than 7,000 "backyard dogs" with free flea and flystrike prevention, shaving matted fur, and giving affection, water buckets, food, and toys
• Delivering 267 sturdy doghouses to "backyard dogs"
• Placing 640 adoptable animals in loving homes or delivering them to high-traffic animal shelters for adoption

"It's almost impossible to imagine what PETA deals with every day in areas where dogs are left to rot on a chain by people who can't or won't meet these animals' basic needs," says PETA Senior Vice President Daphna Nachminovitch. "Animals will continue to suffer until neglect is attacked at its core by banning continuous chaining, restricting breeding, enforcing cruelty laws, and replacing pet shops with adoption facilities."

PETA's is the only private animal shelter in the area that takes in animals without appointments, waiting lists, admission fees, or restricted hours.

For more information, please visit PETA.org. Watch the video here.

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SOURCE People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)