Residents help support "No Kill" initiative for Columbus pets - WTVM
By Taylor Barnhill - bio | email
COLUMBUS, GA (WTVM) - The dogs and cats that are being held at Animal Control and PAWS Humane may not have a voice, but they have plenty of people speaking out for them. Many Columbus residents are fighting to keep these animals alive and they met at the Columbus Library Sunday to show their support.
Event organizer and representative of "No Kill Columbus", Stefani Buzzard said, "Still a lot of people don't know the sheer numbers of how many animals are being killed and to give the city the opportunity to show people they are working on making improvements and making changes to start saving more lives."
Columbus Mayor Teresa Tomlinson says the city is working to prevent deaths of innocent animals who are brought in to the shelter, "We have a nine step program that we are going to employing to make sure more pets stay with their owners, those surrendered find homes, and less of them are euthanized."
But she adds the most important step in making this idea a reality is education, "There's a lot of unintended births in both cats and dogs, and way too often those sweet little babies end up on the streets. That's why we think it is so important to offer residents education about spaying and neutering."
The meeting brought together an entire community of animal lovers and advocates who want to encourage more people to support the "No Kill" initiative and adopt pets.
"Most of the people in Columbus don't know about animal control, they don't know they can adopt from there, they just know about PAWS. It's good to have these meetings to spread awareness and get more people in there, especially now that they are implementing more volunteer programs," explained Caitlyn Townsend, the organizer of "Happy Homes" that helps match up pets with new owners.
With more than 500 animals being euthanized each month in Columbus, Buzzard and other animal lovers say they won't stop fighting for the pets who don't have a voice, "We won't accept anything less than saving all healthy and treatable animals because there's no reason for them to be killed when there are people out there who are willing to take these animals. We just need to make them available for them."
The city of Columbus is preparing to launch their "Save a Pet" program and "No Kill Columbus" will hold their next meeting on October 9th.
Copyright 2011 WTVM. All rights reserved.
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29 Aug, 2011--
Source: http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNEjxzG-LP2Xdllbn19Lh7rzZp0KqQ&url=http://www.wtvm.com/story/15348569/by-taylor-barnhill-
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