Rescue Dogs

It is a very "big thing" these days to get a rescue dog from a shelter. There are daily postings on Facebook showing the dogs looking for homes, and other postings condemning anyone who "dares" to buy a breed specific puppy from a breeder. I admire anyone who does get a puppy/dog from a rescue centre, as I admire the people who work with these rescue dogs. Some of the dogs that land up in these shelters have horrific stories attached to them, but sadly, others are just dumped there after someone's female had a litter - either because they haven't bothered to have the female sterilized, or because they believe that the female needs to have one litter, or even worse, because they want their children to experience the "joys of birth and puppies. A huge number of the puppies born for the above reasons are given, dumped, abandoned at a shelter. The truth being that these days there are so many "no kill" shelters, that people know that a puppy or dog that is in that shelter's care will not be put to sleep - even if it lives its whole life at that shelter. In past years, even though many puppies and dogs were rescued by the few shelters that existed then, there was a policy of putting dogs to sleep after two weeks due to a space problem. This made people think more before "getting rid" of their dog, because, yes, there was a likelyhood of their dog being "killed".

So my thought for the day is: with the abundance of "no-kill" shelters, are they creating a supply of rescue dogs for the public? And is this supply fueled by the "guilt factor" using social media to show pictures of all these abandoned dogs?