ANIMAL HOMELESSNESS AWARENESS

The Problem

According to the Humane Society of Central Texas, over 7.5 million companion animals are admitted to animal shelters per year nationwide. That being said, not every stray animal enters an animal shelter, and many of the animals stay on the streets and repopulate. On my street alone, there are at least ten stray cats wandering around and digging in garbage for food. This problem is important to me as a dog owner and animal lover. There are still millions of animals that get euthanized every year because they did not get adopted and the shelter they were in became overcrowded. I want to help spread awareness regarding this problem and prevent the euthanizing of as many animals as possible. Even though this is a nationwide, and probably a worldwide, problem, I plan to focus on the New York Tri-State area (New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut). Focusing on this area will allow me to have a better idea of what is going on nationwide and how to help the animals in need.  The “market” that will benefit the most from this project will be the animals themselves and possibly the people who run the shelters in order to help lift the stress they may feel from the responsibility of all these animals.

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The Process

To start my research, I will do as much secondary research as possible, finding statistics of how many companion animals (dogs, cats, rabbits, etc.) enter animal shelters in the area and how many get adopted or euthanized. I will also be doing research on which types of animals are not getting adopted in comparison to others, such as which breeds, their age, and the actual species. After doing the secondary research, I will begin my primary research.

For the primary data collection, I plan on reaching out to shelters to ask them questions, such as “Approximately how many animals enter the shelter per month?” and “How many animals were adopted in the last month?” I also would like to look into the volunteering and donation opportunities for shelters and ask how often people donate and how many volunteers do they get on a regular basis. Beyond talking to shelters, I would also like to create a survey for people who have adopted animals in the past to ask about their adoption stories.

I will know that the research is completed when I have enough information to accurately inform others of why these animals need help and how we can help them. The ultimate goal is to be able to spread awareness, help animals get adopted, and expand shelters so that there is more room for the animals. I will measure success by the amount of volunteers, donations, and adoptions. Hopefully through my efforts, those numbers will increase.

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Personal Growth

Through this project, I understand that there will be some constraints, such as shelters being unwilling to answer my questions. As for my personal development, I hope to be able to become more persistent and improve my conversational and public speaking skills. I sometimes have difficulties saying what I want to say in one shot. I tend to ramble or over-explain things when I speak. In addition, I enjoy doing graphic design, but I am an amateur and like to experiment with Adobe programs. I use Adobe InDesign often for my internship, but I would like to use Illustrator more. If permitted by the shelters, I would also like to record the animals at the shelters and enhance my video-editing skills.

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Summary

Overall, I would like to help the animals in animal shelters find homes and live a happy life. I plan to focus on animals in the New York Tri-State area (New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut) so that I have a fixed area to do research and get a strong understanding of the situation nationwide. In my research, I will start out with secondary data that is readily available online so that I can obtain statistics. As for my primary research, I will reach out to shelters and people who have adopted animals in the past so that I can get an understanding of the adoption process and the current awareness of animal homelessness. The ultimate goal is to spread awareness on the subject and help these animals in some way, whether they get adopted, have more people helping (volunteers), or receive donations to help them survive longer in the shelters.