When Rumors can be Killers

We've been disheartened to read reports that some pet parents in areas where the virus is prevalent have made troubling decisions about abandoning their pets out of misinformation about how the coronavirus spreads. Pet parents under no circumstances should be abandoning their pets because of COVID-19.

The most important things pet lovers should know today are:

According to the CDC, there is currently no known reason to believe that any animals, including pets in the United States, can spread COVID-19

The above was part of a message in my e mail from Petco today.

My daughter who lives in upstate new York had told me earlier that many shelters in that area are overflowing  with family pets which have been abandoned there when the families believed their pets

were a threat to the family health.  The overcrowded shelters are out of room and food to care for these

animals.  They are begging for help.  There could possibly be only one solution to this sudden influx and that would be euthanasia.  

I am wondering why people are so quick to believe rumors of this kind and to react without investigation

of the source.  Being a mother myself, I understand the need to be on alert to protect the family.  However, you can't just accept everything you hear from the neighbor, read on the Internet or elsewhere and when it concerns such a major decision as getting rid of the family pet, I, for sure, would want a second opinion.

This pandemic has produced considerable panic everywhere.  Panic never has helped any situation, from

escaping a burning building to being caught in a rip tide.

Shelters are making efforts to find foster homes for the abandoned animals.  

I would hope that the original owners ,who are now aware that this rumor had no basis of fact, would return to the shelter where they left their pet and reclaim him and when doing so, would donate to that

shelter for saving the life of their pet.