Area shelters encourage commitment for a lifetime

Heather Rawlyk and Emily Richmond

Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2003 | 2:42 a.m.

January 1, 2004

This holiday season, local animal shelters emphasized that a pet is a longtime commitment.

"People can't be thinking we're a pet rental agency," said Brian Tolbert, a worker in the Animal Control Receiving Department at Lied Animal Shelter. "Some people get pets and just think if it doesn't work they can bring them right back. It breaks our hearts to think we've given this pet a good home and then to have them returned because they weren't what the owner expected them to be."

Tolbert said the shelter had a pet returned a couple of days before Christmas, after a woman was given a Rottweiler mix as an intended present.

"It was this huge dog and the woman already had several cats," he said. "They just didn't get along so she had to bring him back. That's the kind of thing we see a little."

Pet returns are a year-round problem at Lied Animal Shelter, said Diane Orgill, vice president of the shelter.

"We see an increase in animal adoptions over the holidays, but not necessarily an increase in returns," she said. "This is because we go through interviews and discourage anyone buying a pet for someone else as a gift. We look for that around the holidays."

Instead, Lied Animal Shelter encourages people to buy gift certificates.

"It's just like a normal gift certificate," Orgill said. "That way, people can come in and pick out the pet themselves and if they don't want the pet, they don't have to get one."

Lied Animal Shelter has not had any pet returns since Christmas, Orgill said.

"We haven't had any returns yet, but it's early," she said. "We'll probably get a few where it just didn't work out. Everyone gets a 15-day period to return the pet, so it's a little early yet but we're prepared."

They're not the only ones expecting a few returns.

Each January the Henderson Animal Control Bureau braces for the annual returns of dogs, cats and other pets who were intended as gifts for the holidays, Vicki Cameron, administrator of the city shelter, said.

Since Nov. 26 the Henderson shelter has adopted out 82 dogs, 87 cats and 20 other animals, including rabbits and ferrets, Cameron said. Over the years increases in adoption fees have helped discourage impulse shopping, which has meant fewer animals being returned later on, Cameron said.

The shelter staff also conducts interviews and offers gift certificates, Cameron said.

"If they tell us (the animal) is for someone else we don't allow them to adopt," Cameron said. "We suggest a gift certificate so that the person can come in and pick out a pet themselves."

When the holiday season ends, so can the novelty of the cute puppy or kitten, Cameron said. Many people find themselves unprepared for the long-term responsibility of owning a pet, Cameron said.

There's been some improvement in recent years in public attitudes, said Cameron, who has worked in animal control in the Las Vegas Valley for 30 years. The shelter is seeing fewer abandoned puppies, which means more people are spaying and neutering their dogs. But the number of kittens continues to climb.

"It used to be we only saw kittens in the spring and early summer, now it's all year round," Cameron said.

All animals from local shelters are spayed or neutered prior to adoption to keep them from possibly creating more puppies and kittens that could wind up at the shelters.