American pet health practitioners received a splash, maybe closer to a wave, of cold news this week. NBC News and the Chicago Sun Times each published stories of costs driving pet owners to relinquish pets to animal shelters at alarming rates.
Pet owners understand the intense pain in being forced to hand a treasured family pet over to a shelter, and all of us recognize that the fate of these new shelter dogs and cats will not be a happy one when shelters run out of room. Shelters do all that they can to care for relinquished pets but their capacity is not unlimited. Euthanasia rates for healthy pets are increasing, of course, and that should grab the attention of everyone in the pet healthcare community.
Shortages ultimately are the root cause of this trend, as too few veterinarians drive up costs and limit access to care. The laws of economics govern the system of pet healthcare, no different than the rest of the world.
These twin factors of costs and no access place many American families in harm’s way when it comes to raising a healthy dog or cat. It’s time for Veterinary organizations, whether practices, non-profits or trade associations, to quit challenging, better yet ignoring, the evidence of Veterinary shortages.
Realities on the ground have a way of discrediting rationalizations of “Everything’s just fine” or “We surely don’t need more veterinarians.” No metric speaks louder than rising relinquishments of pet that fill up shelters.
This isn’t about a reputational or earnings risk for veterinarians with news stories about rising costs. It’s about the pet industry stepping up to acknowledge and address the problem head-on: how do we solve shortages so costs of care and limited access are corrected?
My next column will itemize the available solutions and practical steps to implement. But today I want to start a conversation that grows more urgent by the week. It shouldn’t take news stories to get our attention, but thank you to NBC News and the Chicago Sun Times for shining a spotlight on our world of pet healthcare.