Prevention through education

Over the past 25 years we've adopted 23 dogs & cats from legitimate shelters in Palm Beach County and the Greater Toronto area. However, our tipping point between being adopters and pedal-to-the-metal animal welfare advocates came on the day we rescued a tiny "deer" chi hua hua from a shelter only to pass a fraudulent pet adoption fair being conducted by P_____d, the glob's largest brick and mortar pet store. That was our "spitting in a headwind" epiphany. What did we see? Dozens of well intentioned middle school kids and their parents and a staggering number of dogs in cages in the parking lot. The kids were dutifully wearing bright red t shirts emblazoned with the P_____D logo. Everyone there thought they were doing the "right thing". They couldn't have been more wrong. The dogs being adopted were not from local shelters but part of the direct pipeline between P______d and local puppy mills...and all were less than the legal 8 week adoption age. What did we learn? For every pet we adopt, dozens are pumped out by backyard breeders and illegal puppy mills like candy from a Pez dispenser and over 5 MILLION companion animals are euthanized across North America every year as a result. Youth4Animals supports shelters by spiking adoption rates through our Shelter Tours but, even more importantly, these tours provide pervasive public education, starting in our schools, to prevent this sad epidemic of pet overpopulation. Steve & Krystal Hughes