Animal Stereotypes

There are many stereotypes out there in Cyberspace about animal shelters.  Today, I want to address some of them.  Some may be true or false or maybe just partially true.

A big misconception is that there are only American Pit Bull Terriers up for adoption at Pinellas County Animal Services.  WRONG!  We receive many animals daily.  At one point, we received 26,000 animals in a year!  The problem is that people tend to not adopt American Pit Bull Terriers (think Petey from the Little Rascals) which means they take more time to get adopted.  The little breeds are often adopted in a half an hour or less where Pit Bulls take 4-8 weeks.  This results in a higher percentage of dogs being Pit Bulls.  Other common breeds in shelters are Beagles, Retrievers, and Huskies.  Do you know why?

                Beagles like to get out and smell things.  When they pick up a scent, they follow it for miles.  When the scent has played out, they are lost (I suppose they can’t smell their own way back home).  This is when they wander on in to a shelter.

                The reason there are so many Retriever types in shelters is easy to explain.  Retrievers are in high demand so many people buy or adopt them.  Retrievers also are very fecund.  That means they produce a lot of babies.  With a high number of puppies and a high demand, they are everywhere.  Labrador Retrievers are the most owned breed in America!

                The Husky breed loves to run.  I like to tell people who adopt a Husky that they like to escape and go visit the neighbor…..10 miles down the road.   I knew a Husky that would run laps around the yard to warm up and then swim laps in the pool to cool down. 

Next on the list of Myths is that government shelters just kill everything.  I’ve been combating this stereotype for decades.  Because we are an open admission shelter, we take all dogs and cats in our area where other shelters only take in animals given up by their owners.  This is good because it is no fun having to go to several shelters to look for a lost dog.  In Pinellas County, all strays come to us.  Due to this, we often are taking in animals which are ill or just downright not nice.  If an owner does not come to reclaim a lost pet and it is not nice or it is suffering, we will humanely euthanize it.  We do use rescues and other shelters to try to work with things like food aggression or an illness that we are unable to treat.  As long as an animal is nice and at least somewhat healthy, we will put it up for adoption.  We do not have a time limit for an animal to be adopted.

“I don’t want a shelter dog.  They all have problems.  That’s why they are in a shelter.”   This is just a silly way to think.  While problem animals do come into shelters, there are many who are perfectly well behaved.  We see animals whose owner has passed away or moved away and cannot take their pets with them.  We see animals turned in by soldiers who will be away for years.  You just can’t imagine the tears of joy when a soldier’s dog goes home.  In addition, our fantastic volunteers work in shifts to train our dogs to be better pets.

Currently, adoptions are $40 with some being a little less because they have been with us a long time.  Pictured here is Reba who is tired as you can see by her blanky but she is ready to roll out.  This 48lb American Pit Bull Terrier has been with us since 02-14-2013.  She is a medium energy level dog who is 2 years old.  She loves to play fetch and this stray girl knows some basic commands too!  Her serial number is 294935