Thread: people wanting freebies

I think that most shelters in the US charge for animals these days. Our local one charges $80 for cats. I believe it has been found that if you give away animals there is an unacceptably high chance that either the people won't value the animal or they won't really be able to care for it financially. Many of our local shelter's cats are there because their owners dropped them off because they were unable to afford them. While there is the initial cost for a purebred cat/dog, over the long run the expensive part of ownership is vet bills, feeding, etc. This held us back from getting more at some points. Spent about $3,000 on one of our MCs over about a 6mos period taking her to several vet specialists. How many people that want a free cat would do that? Our vet tells us about people that bring in animals that need a few hundred dollars of treatment and the owners want them put down instead. Unfortunately, owning a pet and properly caring for it has gotten to be expensive.