Since the 1940s, perceived companion animal overpopulation in the United States has been an important issue to the animal welfare community (Moulton, Wright, & Rinky, 1991). This surplus of animals has resulted in millions of dogs and cats being euthanized annually in animal shelters across the country. The nature and scope of this problem have been notoriously difficult to characterize. The number of animal shelters in the United Stares, the demographics of the population of animals passing through them, and the characteristics of per owners relinquishing animals are poorly understood. What portion of these animals are adopted or euthanized, why they are relinquished, and their source of acquisition are all questions for which there have been little data. Consequently, we are no closer to answering the fundamental question of how and why many animals are destroyed each year in shelters (Arkow, 1994).

The Regional Shelter Relinquishment Study sponsored by the National Council on Pet Population Study and Policy (NCPPSP) is a national research project designed to explore the characteristics of relinquished dogs and cats, their owners, and the reasons for relinquishment. The NCPPSP Regional Shelter Study found that behavioral problems, including aggression toward people or nonhuman animals, were the most frequently given reasons for canine relinquishment and the second most frequently given reasons for feline relinquishment. No association was found between category JOURNAL OF APPLIED ANIMAL WELFARE SCIENCE, 3(2), 93-106

In order to describe the isolation rates of potential pathogens and to compare anatomic sampling site suitability, nasal and pharyngeal swabs were taken from cats with acute clinical upper respiratory disease in a humane society. DNA of feline herpesvirus-1 was amplified from 51 of 52 cats sampled, Mycoplasma species were cultured or detected by PCR in samples from 34 of 42 cats sampled for both culture and PCR, and Bordetella bronchiseptica was isolated from three of 59 cats sampled for aerobic culture. A single swab was positive for calicivirus and no swabs were positive for Chlamydophila felis. Mycoplasma, Pasteurella and Moraxella species were all isolated from at least one cat in which no primary pathogen was identified. With the exception of B. bronchiseptica, which was detected in nasal swabs only, recovery rates for all suspect primary pathogens were comparable between sampling sites.

Americans profess a great love for their companion animals, and, indeed, their expenditures on food and other products for their dogs and cats would seem to confirm this. However, each year, many millions of dogs and cats are brought to animal shelters, where the majority are euthanized. Our inability to provide reasonably valid statistics related to this concern makes it difficult to offer a credible presentation on the need for a concerted effort to deal with the issue, design initiatives to ameliorate the problem, or evaluate progress and performance of these efforts. In this article we review some of the past efforts to document the scale of the "pet overpopulation" problem. We reexamine long-term shelter statistics from a single shelter system and present new data that reflect a recent cooperative effort to understand the origins and disposition of dogs and cats received by animal shelters.

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