Great Ways To Help Animal Shelters: Visit and Volunteer
Adopting an animal from a shelter not only saves a beloved pet’s life by giving them a loving home, it also frees up shelter space for other animals who needed caring. By definition, an animal shelter is a staffed facility where homeless, stray, lost, abandoned or surrendered animals—and animals seized by authorities in cruelty cases are housed, nursed back to health, cared for, until they could find a loving home. The same could be said of rescue centres. There are private and state-owned shelters, even rescues/sanctuary organizations that have different protocols. Regardless, we should help them help our beloved little friends. From this point, let’s refer to all these as animal centres.
In 2019, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) reported that they took in 10,564 dogs in their centres, had 786 horses in their care at the end of 2019, took in 29,432 cats to their centres, and found new homes for 39,178 animals. Many smaller shelters do the same while also doing programs like spay and neuter, feeding strays, and getting injured or sick ones heal. In an ideal world, no animal suffers, but we live in a far different reality and everyday, there are creatures that suffer in one way or another.
Even if you don’t own a rescue team, you can help animals by helping your local shelter. Here are some ways to extend a paw.
