As a shelter volunteer, it saddened me when people would say "I could never go to a shelter because I would want to take them all home with me" or "How can you see all those dogs and cats and know that they might be killed if they aren’t adopted?" More depressing is that most people who say these things have never actually BEEN to a shelter.
And whether or not you go to a shelter, the animals will still be there. Avoiding the problem doesn’t make it go away. Homeless animals will still exist. There are always animals waiting for homes and for animal lovers, the satisfaction you experience when you help them by volunteering makes it all worthwhile. Animals do not fear death as people do. They live in the moment, so when you volunteer and make a kitten purr or a dog’s tail wag, you’ve brought joy into the life of that animal that it may not otherwise have experienced. It’s an incomparable feeling to comfort a frightened animal and see the first glimmer of hope in its eyes as it tries to trust humans again.
And if you want to know how to stop the killing of companion animals, it’s really very simple: spay or neuter your pets.
Like they say, be a PAL…prevent a litter.