Mission Statement:
Pet Orphans of Southern California (POSC) is dedicated to combating the national crisis of overpopulation, abandonment and euthanasia through extensive education programs. While focusing on the universal concern, POSC is committed to serving its community by rescuing and rehabilitating homeless dogs and cats, providing them with exceptional care and then carefully matching them with suitable adoptive families. In addition to education and rescue, POSC provides broad community support by offering a wide range of services including medical/financial, spay/neuter and training assistance, encouraging responsible pet guardianship thus reducing abandonment and other consequences that deepen the national crisis.

Looking back on the companion animal welfare field, it is clear that things have changed dramatically since Pet Orphans of Southern California was first founded in 1973. Pet Orphans of Southern California believes that it’s time for us, as well as all involved in the field, to reexamine our role in companion animal welfare. The days of a program geared simply to adopting cats and dogs into homes is over.

The problem of pet overpopulation cannot be conquered alone through picking up a few pieces here and there, while the real source of the problem continues to fester and contribute to the untold suffering of millions of pets in the United States. Morever, we can no longer continue to ignore the fact that there is more to finding a home for an animal than a 4-page application and a home check. Many of our dogs come to us fearful, unsocialized, and yes, in some cases, aggressive. National statistics have shown that anywhere from 10-12% of all dogs in homes in the U.S. where obtained from shelters. We need to look at why these numbers are so low – is it truly because people prefer purebred dogs and puppies? Or is it a fear, sadly not always unfounded, that adopting an adult dog into a family with an unknown background can lead to heartache, great financial expense from working with trainers, veterinarians, and animal behaviorists, and even physical harm to its owners and their children.

The fear of adopting a dog with aggression issues is, however, diminished by an even greater disinclination among the pet-owning public to deal with the normal every day issues of dogs and cats that have been discarded and displaced. Studies have shown that behavioral problems are some of the primary reasons for a pet to be given up at a shelter. Barking, digging, jumping, escaping, pulling on leash, and general out-of-control behavior are common with shelter dogs, often dogs in adolescence who have been turned in once their puppy cuteness can no longer make up for their obnoxious behavior. Likewise, inability to properly use a litter box, scratching, and fearful behavior are often the impetus for cats to be turned in. The sad truth is, we are a lazy, throwaway society, with a lack of patience and a poor attention span. With some time, patience, and the assistance of a trainer or veterinarian, these problems can often easily be fixed and lead to a happy, well-adjusted life for a dog or cat in a home. Why is it that our society turns to throwing out the problem, rather than putting out the effort to fix it? Proper socialization and training of puppies from day one could lead to a serious decrease in fearful and aggressive behavior among adult dogs. Proper nutrition and exercise could lead to well-adjusted dogs who fit well into a household. Proper breeding and careful attention to genetics and temperament could produce dogs who are not hampered from day one by ingrained behavioral and health issues. There is no denying that aggressive spay and neuter programs have had a dramatic effect across the country on the number of animals euthanized each year in shelters. Yet, the animals keep coming, dumped in shelters across the U.S. by their owners. Do we honestly have a pet overpopulation problem, or is the problem one that lies more deeply with our own unrealistic expectations of animal behavior and our unwillingness to work with the animal, instead relegating it to a sad, stressful life in a shelter, or ultimately euthanization.

There is a well-known parable where a group of adults rush to the aid of some children drowning in a river. As they each pull child after child out of the rushing rapids, more children continue to appear, a never-ending stream desperate to be saved. Finally, one of the adults turns from the rescue effort and starts to walk upstream. His angry and confused cohorts demand to know where he is going? Why has he stopped pulling children from the river? The man replies, "I’m going upstream to find out why the children are ending up in the river in the first place!" In our re-examination of our goals for the future, Pet Orphans of Southern California has decided our mission is to go up that river. If we ever hope to put a serious dent in the problem we face each day with shelter dogs and cats, we must attack the root of the problem as aggressively and as wholeheartedly as we can. What does this entail?

Public education that discusses not only responsible pet ownership, but the importance of puppy socialization, training and proper management, and the widely available resources of competent, humane dog and cat trainers.

Public education on where to get a pet – whether an owner chooses to buy a dog from a breeder or adopt from a rescue, the public is clearly in need of education on how to find their dog from responsible sources, that either breed for good temperament and health and interview potential homes carefully, or assess the temperaments and personalities of the abandoned dogs in their care and find homes suitable for their needs, or if the dog is not suited for adoption, either works on appropriate humane rehabilitative measures or humanely euthanizes the animal.

Public education on the sad conditions of dogs from puppy mills and pet shops and why these enterprises should be shut down not only for the animals’ benefit, but for the public’s as well.

The dogs and cats in are care need more than a place to sleep, food and water, and a roof over their head while they wait for a home. They need:

• Programs to train shelter dogs in basic manners and calm behavior can produce dogs that are more attractive to adopters, and also acclimate better into the homes.
• Programs to desensitize fearful dogs and cats can lead to more homes for these animals that are often passed over because of their personalities.
• Programs to assist with medical and behavioral issues, such as retraining cats to use their litterboxes.
• Most importantly, programs designed to eliminate the intense stress and anxiety that animals in shelters experience every day. Make no mistake, living in a kennel run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, is a miserable experience for animals that have been bred for centuries to be domesticated. Warehousing an animal with no hope for a future is not in the mental and physical health interests of any companion animal.

And most pertinent of all, we can no longer engage in an adversarial relationship with the public shelters. There is no argument that our city and county shelters are overwhelmed and under-funded. Blaming them for a problem that in the end lies solely with the public who continue to callously dump unwanted animals is unproductive, and ultimately self-defeating. If we do not like how a public shelter’s staff is working with the animals, then we must team together and assist them, provide them with resources and training and education. For years there has been a division between the supposed "no kill" private shelters and the "kill" public shelters. This division is unproductive, and labeling these shelters "kill" shelters is cruel and unfair. If we want to solve the problem that leads to the endless numbers of healthy animals euthanized day in and out for lack of space, then we must pull together as one group and one voice to promote animal welfare and education in any way that we can – to our legislators, to our municipal officers, to the media, and to the public.

NEED STATEMENT

Each year, nearly 128,000 dogs and cats are euthanized at Los Angeles City and County animal shelters.

Alternatives: Pet Orphans of Southern California believes that euthanasia is not the solution to pet overpopulation. We do not euthanize adoptable, treatable pets. When an animal is unadoptable or medically untreatable, we are faced with a painful, but responsible decision to euthanize. We define “adoptable” and “treatable” as follows:

Adoptable: According to California law, adoptable animals are "those animals eight weeks of age or older that, at or subsequent to the time the animal is impounded or otherwise taken into possesion, have manifested no sign of a behavioral or temperatmental defect that could pose a health or safety risk or otherwise make the the animal unsuitable for placement as a pet, and have manifested no sign of disease, injury, or congenital or hereditary condition that adversely affects the health of the animal or that is likely to adversely affect the animals health in the future." Adoptable animals may be old, deaf, blind, disfigured or disabled.

Treatable: According to California law, a treatable animal is "any animal that is not adoptable but that could become adoptable with reasonable efforts." Sick, injured, traumatized, infant or unsocialized, these animals need appropriate medical treatment, behavior modification and/or foster care to turn them into healthy animals ready for placement.

Non-rehabilitatable: Non-rehabilitatable animals are neither adoptable or treatable. They include 1) cats and dogs for whom euthanasia is the most humane alternative due to disease, injury or suffering that can't be alleviated; 2) vicious cats and dogs, the placement of whom would constitute a danger to the public; and 3) cats and dogs who pose a public health hazard.

What we do is provide alternatives. Through our rescue efforts, we help to give abandoned and disposed of dogs and cats a second chance at life in caring, permanent homes. In addition, our Private Adoption Assistance Program offers an option to those who need to place cats or dogs with new Guardians and do not wish to take them to city or county shelters. Our Spay/Neuter Program helps low income and senior citizen members of the community who want to do their part to end the overpopulation crisis but are unable to do so due to lack of funds. And our Keep Rover in the Home Program offers financial help to those who think they need to give up their dog for behavioral problems, as an alternative Pet Orphans will cover the cost of sending a training into the home or a six week training class with one of our trainers. With the number one reason for owner surrenders at our city and county shelters being attributed to behavioral problems, we believe offering the public financial help for training cost will reduce the number of unwanted animals at our shelters.

Awareness: Pet Orphans of Southern California believes that education is the key to stopping the pet overpopulation problem at its source. Through telephone and online counseling and our educational, training, behavioral enrichment, financial support and spay/neuter services, we strive to inform those who, through lack of knowledge, are not acting as responsible pet owners.

This philosophy has resulted in Pet Orphans of Southern California's successful placement of thousands of cats and dogs into loving new homes.