Puppies, puppies, puppies. Everyone loves puppies—their warm, soft, little bodies, their playful antics, their happy, goofy faces, and furiously wagging tails. Those little guys are entitled to a full happy life, but the future of puppies born from indiscriminate breeding is far from certain.
In Aiken County, those puppies are most likely abandoned on the road, in a dumpster or, dropped off at the Aiken County Animal Shelter in the middle of the night by owners who never bothered to spay mama dog and then wash their hands of the consequences. Sometimes they surrender them to the shelter in person, year after year, without a second thought and leave it to us solve their problem. A whole litter of little lives that didn’t ask to be born. They deserve better.
Puppies, puppies, puppies. Hundreds of them in all shapes and sizes. A busy public shelter is not the place for those adorable small fries to receive the proper time, attention, or love to become healthy, well-balanced adults. We work hard to find them a second chance, either locally or out of town, but it’s heartbreaking work. In the summer months, the shelter is woefully overcrowded with adult dogs, too, just waiting for that one person to walk by their kennel, look twice, and take them home to love.
This summer, the shelter’s been overwhelmed with incoming animals, adults and puppies. Transfers to our northern transfer partners are not guaranteed. Many, like the county shelter, have their own problems with limited spay/neuter serves and are overwhelmed as well. Some just don’t accept puppies. Since Covid, the safety nets for homeless and abandoned animals have frayed to the point of near collapse across the country.
We do all we can, but it’s not enough. It will never be enough unless we get serious about providing low-cost spay/neuter services to county residents.
In Aiken County and adjoining counties, public and private low-cost spay/neuter clinics and services are extremely limited. Add that to a nationwide shortage of veterinarians, many of whom don’t provide low cost spay/neuter services to the public, the population of homeless animals grows beyond our ability to care for them. Aiken County is no exception.
The only effective solution is to build a dedicated public spay/neuter clinic to service the citizens of Aiken County, and county council is stepping to the plate. The cost to build a dedicated spay/neuter clinic in the county was included as one of its one-penny tax projects in the current round of funding. We applaud County Council’s foresight and humanity.
This is not an experimental endeavor. Six years ago, Greenville County build a dedicated, state of the art, public low-cost spay/neuter clinic. In those six short years, Greenville saw a 60% reduction in intake. It worked. Apply that 60% reduction to Aiken County, and the county shelter intake reduces dramatically, year after year, to a manageable number. Every adoptable animal will continue to be saved.
Collectively, we need to come together as a community to improve the outcomes for Aiken County’s homeless animals. Together, with the help of a committed county council, we can reduce the suffering of unwanted animals and make our community shelter a resource—not a destination. Go to fotasaiken.org to see how you can help.
Their lives are in our hands.
By Joanna D. Samson, FOTAS Vice-President
