Karen De Coster on Animal Welfare

Nowadays, private rescues have popped up everywhere. Living in a metro area, I see new, local rescues all the time on Petfinder. I sometimes donate to these organizations because they are all volunteers contributing their time, and  sometimes money, to a most worthy cause. The culture here in America is such that people value pets and place them at a similar level of importance as family, and so they give their time accordingly. In the past, the government, with its county and city shelters, did nothing more than cage the homeless animals for a few days, hoping someone might come by to adopt them, and if not, they were killed. Since governments were not going to ramp up a massive welfare state to care for animals and their needs, private efforts stepped in and took up the task. What has evolved over the last dozen years is a huge network of cooperating individuals and organizations donating their time and money to what has become a largely private (and efficient) animal welfare system that is effective in dealing with the welfare of unwanted pets.

Can you imagine how much better things could be if people realized what works so well here works just as well for people?  Compare and contrast pet health care with people health care while you’re at it.