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nymusicdaily's avatar

when I was a kid there were stray dogs all over the south side of williamsburg in brooklyn. And also in gowanus. For what it's worth, both neighborhoods are on the water (though I dread to think what would happen to a dog who drank out of the gowanus canal).

Today zero zip nada. Gentrification? Dog registration rules? Btw nyc dog tags are gps-enabled

cats are more elusive. You'd think they'd be all over places like chinatown which are rat mega cities, but they're either fat and hiding or not there at all (hence the mega-expansion of chinatown rat city)

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Amy Sukwan's avatar

It is similar for me. Growing up in Toledo there were free kittens and free puppies signs in the neighborhood regularly. One animal charity inadvertantly admitted to an alarming trend: they said that there were 17 million unwanted dogs and cats in the US in the 1980's, and now the number has dropped to 2 million. Of course this was painted as huge progress and maybe with your help we can drop the number to 0. For whatever reason, mostly the heavy pushing of neuter/spay/jab/microchip overpopulation does not seem to be the big problem. Dog and cat breeders have difficulties and looking on Craigslist, which still allows independent pet posts but which largely does not exist here in Thailand, it is difficult to find puppies or kittens of any type. The posts they do have are very high prices. Sometimes I worry that the focus on overpopulation and depopulation despite changing circumstances could lead to doom...

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kitten seeking answers's avatar

growing up in ‘60’s & ‘70’s there were always kids outside the supermarket trying to find good homes for a cardboard box of kittens. haven’t seen anything like this in at least the last three decades.

also wouldn’t surprise me all of the nasty stuff in the chemtrails.🙀😿.

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Amy Sukwan's avatar

Yes it has been an extremely long time since I've seen or heard of free kittens on street corners. Even Craigslist does not have such listings, although you could occasionally find a free adult dog, most commonly pitbulls. I'm sure there are areas such as rural Arkansas where we adopted our cat Dusky from which still have plenty of puppies and kittens. But on the ground I'm not seeing it. The feral cats situation has me really scratching my head. Momma hasn't given birth to a litter since December of 2021. Random kitty disappeared a few weeks ago but before that she had her last litter in May of 2022. Feisty is 3 years old and she has never showed an interest in male cats or gone into heat, so no kittens there either....

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kitten seeking answers's avatar

thinking we should believe them about their “Net Zero” Planning

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Unagnu's avatar

Something in the injections they are giving. I quit vaxing except rabies and that only every 3 to 4 years. (never was really religious about it) and will never give another cat I get anymore jabs. Even rabies, since mine only go out in an enclosure...

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feral lunch lady's avatar

It depends on the area. There is definitely a cat overpopulation problem in British Columbia. I follow a youtube rescue called Tiny Kittens, which is currently trying to spay and neuter a colony of around 100 farm cats. They currently have 2 litters in house, and there are several litters still in the field they don't have room for. One would think that British Columbia would be an area with a population decline, since it's a woke area under a totalitarian government, but they definitely have too many adorable kittens.

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Unagnu's avatar

I'll import one to Florida? There are quite a few here, despite the coyote problem.

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Susie AH's avatar

Here in the UK we have many dog and cat rescue centres that purport to offer animals for rehoming but everyone I spoke to tells me how it’s very difficult to re home a dog (I’m not sure about cats as I haven’t tried). We have 3 dogs now and every time we wanted another dog, we looked at the rescue centres and there was never anything suitable and we were prepared to take an old or disabled dog but just needed a small one because I can only use one arm. It’s amazing that here we have people bringing stray dogs in from Eastern Europe and Cyprus as well as other countries and yet we are told that rescue centres need more money! A friend’s sister works for a nationwide dogs rehoming charity and she is forbidden to discuss the pets that are available. Everything has to be through the proper channels. To adopt you need to visit the animal several times and have a home visit where they check you have a 2m fence around your property amongst other things. In short it’s just too difficult to adopt so people buy a puppy. Puppies in the UK, even non pedigree pups such as cockapoos and labradoodles sell for over £2000. Prices doubled during Covid. There is also a market in stolen dogs. Until I read your post, I hadn’t really thought about this subject too much but now I do wonder what the hell is going on?

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Amy Sukwan's avatar

These shelters do seem to have control freaks difficult vetting criteria. It's very strange. Supposedly all of these dogs yet I don't see them

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JJ's avatar

Here in Alabama, we are overflowing with dogs and cats.

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Amy Sukwan's avatar

We adopted a dog in Las Vegas that came from Alabama. It seems there's too many in one area and almost none in another...

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DWB's avatar

We live in a Muslim part of Bangkok. It's spooky when the loudspeakers blast out the pre-dawn call to prayers. In unison, every stray dog starts howling in a complementary way to the prayer, but also communicating with each other (?). You don't realize how many of them surround you until this happens.

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Amy Sukwan's avatar

We have a mosque nearby us also and do hear the calls to prayer. It is a softer sound than that and none of our dogs or others in the area ever started howling over it. Interesting! There is a dog shelter nearby us though and sometimes those dogs began howling in unison when ambulance sirens go past...

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