Читать книгу Cats For Dummies - Gina Spadafori - Страница 41

Municipal animal-control facilities are perhaps the easiest to figure out. Finding homes for pets was not the reason these facilities were founded and is not their primary purpose to this day — although many of them do a good job of it, nonetheless.

Animal-control departments were formed to protect people from animal-borne menaces — primarily rabies. They remove dead animals and enforce regulations, such as those regarding the licensing of animals — a rabies control measure even cats fall under in some areas — and the number and kind of animals people can keep. They respond to calls about neglected or abused animals, about vicious animals, as well as calls involving animals that disturb a neighborhood because of noise or odor. These departments also serve as a “convenience” to people who no longer want their pets, handling homeless animals through adoption, through killing adoptable animals who can’t find new homes, or, in some locales, through sales to biomedical research. A little research will help you determine which kind of operation you’re dealing with if you’re interested in the details — or in change — but it shouldn’t stop you from saving a life. Pets don’t get to choose where they end up, after all.

Animal-control shelters have never been well-funded operations, and this situation hasn’t much improved over the years in many areas, although some municipal shelters are able to engage their communities to raise funds and get volunteers. With so much required of them by law and so few resources, readying animals for adoption and counseling prospective adopters isn’t always at the top of the animal-control director’s list of priorities. And yet, because of caring people in many of these departments and in the communities they serve, municipal animal-control shelters can be good places to adopt.