Beagles Update -- New Homes Await

I called over to the local Animal Shelter this morning, and the three beagles I found running loose in the road 10 days ago have still not been claimed.

They tracked down the name and phone number on the tag to a woman who said she did not own the dogs, had no room for dogs, and was very busy. She then hung up the phone.

Odd behavior. The shelter folks think that this woman is actually the original owner of the dogs, and that she simply dumped them or released them to the road.

The good news is that the animal shelter says that it has "loads" of "really great applications" for these gentle and happy dogs, and they are all going to be adopted out very quickly. "These dogs have a waiting list," I was told. Excellent!

It's a tesimony to the effectiveness of spay-neuter laws and the hard worlk of breed-specific rescues that fewer "good" dogs are being euthenized today.

During the last 30 years shelter intakes and euthanasias have decreased by 60-80 percent in many cities, particularly those located on the East and West coasts of the U.S. In a county like Arlington, where loose dogs are unheard of, unemployment is low, and social consciousness is pretty high (we are sometimes called the "People's Republic of Northern Virginia"), the local animal shelter has more requests for beagle-sized dogs than it can accomodate.

All's well that ends well. I will call again in a few weeks when the dogs are placed. The delay in placement is solely due to the fact that there is a case of Parvo in the kennel, and so all the dogs are in "lockdown" until that is cleared up.