These is one of the worst phrases a pet owner can run into when they’re looking for somewhere to live and unfortunately it is extremely common. Even rental properties that allow pets often have many restrictions or pet owners are required to pay premiums, pet deposits and monthly ‘pet rent’ on top on regular rental fees. Many place restrict pets to a certain number, one or two, or they restrict them to a certain size, maybe 25 lbs or less.

Today, with the financial crunch causing many people to lost their homes, ‘No Pets Allowed’ is also causing many pet owners to lose their pets. They feel forced into surrendering them and sadly, there are even too many who don’t even care enough to take the effort to surrender them to even have the chance at a second chance.

Ok, here’s a story… there was woman who basically lost everything due to her stupidity in choosing the wrong kind of guy. He walked of with everything he could, which was pretty everything they owned and left her with a house in foreclosure, an empty bank account, a defunct business and a houseful of dogs and birds to try to provide for.

Luckily, she managed to find wonderful homes for the birds, some beautiful canaries and finches, almost two dozen of them but she couldn’t bear to be parted with the dogs. At night as she curled in the pile of blankets and pillows. all the furniture she had, on the floor of the house with no electricity or heat, they curled around her and licked her tears and gave her the only comfort she knew.

Finally she knew she had to find some place to live before they claimed the house so she took her broken down, barely running old SUV (the guy took her new truck with everything else) and started looking for some where she could live with her dogs which she refused to give up. She would have lived in her vehicle rather than lose her babies.

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Aren’t there already enough government jobs, whether it be city, county, state or whatever, without having to create more and in the process close an animal shelter, something which is desperately needed?? Seems Monroe County, WI doesn’t think so. Monroe County board voted to create a new county administrator position and to facilitate this the budget has to be cut somewhere and it looks like the animal shelter is going to be the sacrificial lamb. Seems the animals always pay the price.

A finance committee survey found the animal shelter to be a low priority in tax dollar spending. Those involved with the shelter feel differently, saying the county doesn’t understand what impact closing the shelter would have.

Each year the Monroe County Animal Shelter sees about 500 to 600 stray or abandoned dogs.

A proposal to cut about $50,000 of tax funding allocated to run the shelter would leave an estimated $35,000 of revenue from dog licenses to keep the shelter running. However, the revenue in dog licenses alone is not enough to run the whole operation and the Monroe County Humane Officer foresees major problems.

“If we don’t have a place for the stray dogs to go in our county people are going to just take the dogs and dump them in a neighboring county that does have a place for the dogs to go and that would be a horrible solution for a problem for Monroe County,” said Paulette Hansen, the Monroe County Humane Officer.

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