Abandoned Pets - One town that seems to get a lot of them

Posted: Feb 18, 2010 12:13 PM by Steve Adamson
Updated: Feb 18, 2010 12:13 PM

Folks in one local town say for years people have been dropping off pets in their community that they don't want anymore. They're not really sure why, all they know is that it just keeps happening.

California Valley is a remote area, a good 60 or 70 miles from most Central Coast communities. Pets seem to get here somehow, although why this town ends up being the drop off spot isn't really clear. "I don't have a clue where they're coming from. I just know that they're just maybe saying, well it's time to get rid of them. Let's just, you know, take a nice drive and let's drop 'em off out there and maybe they can make it," says 20+ year resident Karen Moreland. She spends a lot of money on food trying to care for as many strays that she can and has been doing so for years.

Robert Boyer also has the routine down pat. Day in and day out, he's feeding cats that just keep growing in numbers at his home. "Now I got 21 cats, plus two cats that I had of my own. It just keeps going." Cats are predominately abandoned, but he has dogs show up too. Someone dropped a pitbull in front of his place earlier this week.

While residents in this small town in the eastern-most section of San Luis Obispo seem to feel they're the only town dealing with this problem, humane society officials say it's pretty widespread. "That's actually something that's pretty common and we hear about frequently. A lot of the wineries talk about it. A lot of the ranches do too, and also the people with property up in North County," according to Steve Kragenbrink of the Woods Humane Society.

He also noted that a lot of it has to do with simple over population of pets due to lack of spay and neutering. There also seems to be more pet abandonment's during these harder economic times, as people who have lost their jobs face difficult decisions and often have to make the choice to give up a pet because they can no longer afford to keep it.

Robert Boyer and others in California Valley also think that too many folks who make the decision to get a pet sometime become burdened with the responsibilty of taking care of it just because they get tired of dealing with it. Typically, they might have got it originally for a child and after a while the novelty of having the pet for whatever reason wears off. They would like to see people thinking about giving up their pet to contact their local humane society for options...They feel they've been doing more than their fair share of caring for unwanted pets for a long time.