Humane shelters are common all over the United States, serving as a location for all sorts of animals to have refuge, be safe, and hopefully find a new home off the streets. There are approximately 4,000 animal shelters across the country, all there to help animals. However, not all of these shelters are humane. 56% of shelters in the US have a no-kill policy, meaning they don’t kill healthy animals based on time limits or capacity, but the other 44% of shelters do not have a no-kill policy in place. 

Many things go on inside these shelters. For the most part, a lot of these no-kill shelters take in animals, keep them and their areas clean and dry, care for their emotional and physical needs, and try to find the animals new homes. However, not all places are as caring and nurturing. According to PETA, some shelters have to turn away animals when they don’t have enough room, or the animals are brought into shelters that are dirty and inhumane, where they don’t take care of the animals and they’re left to die from things like disease or exposure. For example, some people try to surrender their dogs to no-kill shelters, but since many shelters require appointments to be made, people have turned to kill their dogs in order to not have to keep them until the appointment. 

Humane shelters were created for the sole purpose of rescuing animals from off the street, caring for them, and attempting to help them find new homes. However, a current problem with these shelters, the no-kill shelters, is that they only euthanize animals under extreme conditions. That may not sound so bad, but because of this, the shelters aren’t able to take in as many animals as there are out on the streets. Since they don’t just kill the animals whenever, those shelters run out of space, not allowing them to take in more animals in need. Also, animals in these shelters that don’t end up getting adopted, maybe because they’re too sick or they just don’t end up getting adopted, end up being euthanized. Some things that occur inside these “humane” shelters aren’t necessarily what some people would consider to be humane.