Pets Victimized By House Foreclosures

February 6th, 2008

Reports coming in from Stockton California are heart rending. The retreating owners had vandalized an abandoned house and cowering in a corner was a forgotten pit bull. The workers found it too late to save it from the fate of a slow death from starvation. This is just one example of how pets are paying for human games with foreclosure.

Many of those evicted by foreclosures have a trying time ahead to find a roof and are in no condition to take their pets along with them. Farmers are finding dogs trying to survive in the fields while pet cats are clawing up wild cat slums. A reporter spied two tame cats eyeing food being offered to their feral cousins, not daring to go forward. There was no doubt about the cats being tame for they were not afraid of humans but shy of the feral variety.

As more abandoned pets are being focused on the Internet the animal lovers are becoming furious with foreclosure games. There are horrendous stories of property inspectors and brokers entering the house to find dogs tied to tress, cats in closed garages and the children’s bedrooms crawling with emaciated turtles, lizards and rabbits. In the hurly burly of foreclosures nobody has time or interest to track the growing number of forsaken animals. It is the worst where there is a concentration of foreclosures.

The occupants of foreclosed houses are warned well ahead but they forestall going away till the last minute. In the panic and hurry the pets are forgotten. In many places pets are forbidden. The situation has become so grim that the Humane Society is urging the evicted house owners to leave their pets at animal shelters.

For the caretakers of animal shelters it is an uphill task with fewer people offering to adopt and funds at an all time low. Usually the new house owners ask for pets but today it is not so – even they are shying away from the responsibility. It is a costly to rear a puppy.

Desperate calls are coming through to the San Joaquin Animal Shelter from owners about to be evicted whose efforts at finding a place to stay allowing a pet has turned out to be a failure. They breakdown over the phone. The shelter dispatcher has no other alternative but to be blunt – in all probability the animal would have to be put down.