How does the East Bay SPCA reduce the euthanasia of dogs and cats in the community?
No shelter in one community works in a vacuum. Our efforts are reflected in each other’s animal population. The East Bay SPCA is a private facility. When we run out of room, we have the luxury of closing our doors until the animals we have are adopted. We could reduce euthanasia in our shelter to zero if we did not euthanize any animals, regardless of health or behavior. However, we would quickly become full, and unable to accept animals from other shelters, since the animals here would never be placed in homes. Public shelters, with an obligation to the city or county that funds them, do not have that luxury. When public shelters are full they have no choice but to euthanize even adoptable animals to make space for those incoming. Public shelters rely on us and other private shelters or rescue groups to take in adoptable animals and keep their population low enough to avoid euthanizing. What about rehabilitating animals? We work extremely hard with the limited resources we have to ext
