Open Letter To People Who Surrender Their Pets To Shelters

I was reading the Catster website and saw an open letter and video addressed to pet owners who drop their pet off at a shelter like a piece of garbage the day of a move, as they are loading the moving van instead of making arrangements as soon as they know they're moving. Anyway I agree 200 percent with this open letter.
The video would be funny if it wasn't so unfortunately true.

http://www.catster.com/lifestyle/people-who-surrender-pets-to-shelters

 

It's so frustrating that people do this to their pets. I wish there was a way to track them down and fine them.

 

True, these people don't deserve to have pets. Dropping off your 10 year old cat is a death sentence because families looking to adopt a cat don't want an old cat who is used to you and your house.

Saying, "But Missy is such a sweet cat ,and I'm moving." is not going to keep your old cat from getting put to sleep.

Once I was so determined to stay with my cat that I lived in a crappy hotel with my cat for 4 months until I could find an apartment that would take both of us. That hotel was full of drug addicts, had the bathrooms in the hallway and charged me by the week, but I stayed there until I could sign a lease on an apartment that allowed cats.
So I don't believe the excuse that people have to throw away their animals because they're moving.

 

Yes, dropping the cat off at the nearest animal shelter is almost as good as killing it. Relatively speaking, just dropping the cat off by the roadside is more humane because then the cat has a better chance of surviving.

Nevertheless, abandoning a cat just because it no longer fits into your life is not an acceptable reason. Maybe what really needs to be done is to stop people from having cats in the first place if they cannot commit themselves for life.

No idea how this can be enforced, though. We already have laws that make it very costly to get divorced yet people still do it all the time. So if we cannot save people from being abandoned, we are still a long way from saving cats from the same fate.