I am aware that there are lots of unwanted animals which end up in rescue centres but until I watched Panorama last week and read this article was not aware how many healthy animals are put down. The programme focused on dogs and the problem with potentially aggressive dogs being put down.
It seems that the trend for dogs as status symbols is behind the rise in bull breed crosses such as Staffordshire bull terriers and it is these that now seem to be most common in rescue centres. Unfortunately many of these have been bread to be aggressive and these animals are put down. There are also cases of dogs that are simply put to sleep because they cannot be trusted with other dogs. This means they need to be kept in individual kennels and so cuts down on the available space in shelters. It is these dogs that bump up the numbers of animals killed because they are considered too dangerous to rehome.
In total Battersea Dogs and Cats Home put down 2,815 dogs last year, of which 1,931 were healthy. The Panorama programme showed one dog being put to sleep which I am sure upset a lot of animal lovers but I think it was important to highlight this issue. The problem is how to deal with the issue. I don’t think licensing is the way to go as the irresponsible owners most likely to cause the problem are least likely to license their dog. Perhaps it should be made compulsory to neuter your pet so that we are not adding to the problem.