Think twice before gifting a pet for the holidays, says shelter
JACKSON, Tenn. — Many people like to celebrate the holidays by adding a new furry member to the family.
Before you gift a new pet for Christmas, no matter who it is for, think twice.
Often times people make the decision before realizing they’re not able to care for the new companion properly.
“You’re not gifting them a cute fuzzy puppy or kitten to live on for a week. You are gifting them a 10 or 15 year commitment. And so they have to be financially and physically responsible for this animal for the next decade and a half potentially. That’s a very big commitment that you should not make for someone else,” said Whitney Owen, Director of the Jackson Animal Care Center.
After the holidays, animal shelters see an uptick in animal surrenders.
“Our recidivism rate for adoptions done in house is very, very low after the holidays. We do, however, see a very drastic uptick in surrenders that people got from other locations. We do have a large jump, especially with puppies,” Owen said.
It’s a problem they say happens every year after Christmas. The surrenders happen for a variety of reasons.
“They’re cute and fuzzy,” Owen said. “Then realize, hey, that this thing is going to use the bathroom in my floor, and it’s going to chew on my couch, and it’s going to eat my children’s socks, and it’s going to bark at 3 a.m. because it has to go potty, and all of these things that they did not consider on the front end.”
Plus, the process of surrendering pets back to the shelter can be a traumatic experience for the animals.
“If they’ve had a cat or dog for five, six, eight, 10 years, and it doesn’t like the new puppy or kitten, they’ll dump the senior dog with us and keep the new one. And that is emotionally, physically devastating for those animals. A lot of them never recover,” Owen said.
If you do want to give a pet as a gift, make sure they are willing to make a life-long commitment.
“All of those options need to be weighed in advance. It doesn’t need to be the, ‘Oh. We’ll figure it out.’ It needs to be, ‘I’ve done my due diligence. I’ve done my homework. I know they want this cat or this dog.’ Not just in theory, ‘I’d like to get a puppy at some point.’ Now they want this one and they want it now. We’re okay with that, and we’re comfortable with that, and we’ve done everything that we need to do to organize that and make sure that it’s going to go off the way it’s supposed to,” Owen said.
If you have more questions about the adoption process, contact the Jackson Animal Care Center at (731) 422-7028.
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