The high price of animal shelters
By Sean Aqui | Related entries in NewsTwo years ago, our oldest cat died. A year ago, so did our second. Both were elderly; their deaths were sad but not unexpected. They’re buried together in the woods in our back yard.
Four weeks ago, we decided it was time to have cats around again. So we visited several local shelters and finally adopted a pair of 3-month-old female kittens: a feisty short-hair calico and an affectionate black domestic longhair with extra toes on its front feet.
We believe in adopting from shelters rather than buying purebreds for both humanitarian and economic reasons. And while we’ve always been sort of opposed to declawing — my wife calls it “cutting off their fingers at the first knuckle” — we reluctantly decided to have them declawed because we both work and wouldn’t be able to spend the necessary time teaching them not to shred the furniture.
What floored me was the cost.
The adoption fee for each cat was $150 plus tax. That included a bunch of veterinary care prior to adoption, plus free microchipping and spaying afterward.
Both had colds — a common ailment in shelters, where animals live in close proximity to each other — so a vet visit and some antibiotics cost $50.
Declawing was another $200 apiece — no charge for the extra toes. They also got their distemper boosters.
So four weeks in, we’ve invested more than $800 in these two “free” cats.
Declawing was a choice, of course. And the fees in the Twin Cities are far higher than those at shelters out in the country. But that’s a staggering amount of money — and it doesn’t even include things like food, litter boxes or litter.
I understand that shelters need to cover expenses, and I don’t begrudge them or the vets the money. We love the cats — even if they keep us awake at night with their playing, or by jumping up on the bed and purring in our ears — and can afford the cost.
But it has set me to wondering: At what point does the cost of adoption start interfering with their mission to save animals? A lot of families that might otherwise make wonderful homes for abandoned animals simply can’t afford to spend that kind of money on a pet. Are the shelters dangerously narrowing their customer base in a pennywise, pound-foolish fashion?
(continued at Midtopia)
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April 12th, 2007 at 12:26 pm
Uum Sean, I hate to be the one tell you this, but your first mistake was to buy a CAT.
Just the idea that a CAT would have some monetary value is funny - it does nothing, it produces nothing, it has no talent and its personality generally suck (unless they around dogs and then the K-9 personality wears off on it.)
Cats suck. They shit in a box in your house. They aren’t friendly unless THEY WANT TO BE FRIENDLY - its like they are always on the rag. Do yourself a favor, kill’em, skin’em and eat’em.
April 12th, 2007 at 1:40 pm
Oh, they do worse than that: they make it clear that if they were bigger, they’d try to eat you. As is, I have to be careful about wiggling my toes for fear of attack by a near-soundless carnivore.
On the other hand, they’re great foot and hand warmers on cold nights.
My two favorite lines about the difference between cats and dogs:
1. A dog looked at his owner and thought, “He feeds me, cleans up after me and takes care of my every need. He must be a god.” A cat looked at his owner and thought, “He feeds me, cleans up after me and takes care of my every need. I must be a god.”
2. When a dog misbehaves and you yell at it, it thinks “I did something wrong. I’ll do better next time.” When a cat misbehaves and you yell at it, it thinks “People are mean.”
April 12th, 2007 at 3:19 pm
Weighing on the cats’ defense; they are an unending source of amusement and entertainment.
April 12th, 2007 at 3:42 pm
So are circus midgets, but that doesn’t mean I want one living and shitting in my closet…
April 13th, 2007 at 3:09 am
You know Sean I had the same problem with my cat meaning the “attack the feet under the covers” thing. Eventually It ended up being unintentionally punted across the room and off the opposite wall and never had that problem again.
April 13th, 2007 at 7:47 am
DosPeros,
Thanks for the giggle you gave me on Friday morning. I will have to check my closets for circus midgets.
April 13th, 2007 at 9:21 am
I don’t know how you ended up paying $150 for a cat at an animal shelter. When my girlfriend and I got our dog, Albert, from the Athens-Clarke County animal rescue, it was $50 total (well, for the animal shelter - apartment fees were $300) and I am sure a cat would have been less.
In defense of cats, many of the screwed up cats I know are screwed up because of (previous) bad owners. Cats require training and if they are not trained properly, they’ll be total cock-ups. My family got our cat in 1993 (from a shelter) for $15, we trained him properly with the appropriate positive and negative reinforcements, and he has been good. He became mean after my parents were divorced and mom’s boyfriend didn’t treat him as a cat.
Cat’s are simple creatures. Play their game, it’s only a small one.
April 13th, 2007 at 9:22 am
Strike that “cat’s” and replace it with the proper pluralization.
April 13th, 2007 at 10:48 am
Ryan: Well, maybe we just got suckered…. But that was pretty much the going rate at the various shelters we visited: $100 and up per animal. Outstate it was much lower; if we had cared to drive to Austin, Minn., we could have had ‘em for $50 apiece.
Cats need to be socialized when they’re young, otherwise they can be very standoffish as adults. That means gently holding them and petting them for a few minutes longer than they would prefer. Gradually, they get used to (and like) longer and longer petting sessions.
But it also depends on the breed: both domestic longhairs we’ve had couldn’t get enough attention. They were so affectionate you felt like you were being stalked.
April 13th, 2007 at 12:46 pm
Noted New York City Veterinarian for decades, Dr. Louis J. Camutti, had people like the cat owners mentioned in the article who didn’t have time to train their cats, so they had the cat’s paws dismembered, disfigured, crippled, maimed, instead. Dr. Camutti said in his book, All My Patients are Under the Bed: “Just the request, itself (to maim healthy animal limbs) is an indication that the household is not suited for a cat.”
April 13th, 2007 at 3:16 pm
I tried to get a dog from the “Humane Society” last summer. After finding out I’d have a “background check” and pay about $200 to adopt him, I ended up at the local puppy farm. Kind of makes me think that the humane society does just the opposite of what it intends.
April 16th, 2007 at 7:40 am
I’m biting my tongue on the nasty cat remarks above. :-(
That sounds like an expensive shelter. My last two cats (both have since passed away and now we have 3 dogs) were adopted, one was a stray I rescued from the streets, and the other from a shelter run by the Defenders of Animal Rights. The cat I got from the shelter cost me $70 and brought me joy beyond any price. I can also say the same for the $700 pug we got from a breeder. I don’t think about pets in terms of what they cost, they’re like members of the family.
All the same, I think there are affordable adoption shelters in many places — maybe the charges from your shelter were so high because their operating costs aren’t covered by adoption fees and donations alone?