Most Americans say they’ve heard about the plight of homeless pets, but they underestimate the scope of the problem as well as the number of dogs and cats euthanized in U.S. shelters every year. That’s according to the findings from an online survey by PetSmart Charities Inc. (Phoenix) and Ipsos Marketing (New York).

The group surveyed 2,000 adults in the United States plus 1,000 adults who’d acquired a dog or a cat in the past year.

“We were intrigued to learn that the overpopulation of homeless dogs and cats ranked third in terms of familiarity with social issues,” said Susana Della Maddalena, executive director of PetSmart Charities.

About three-quarters of survey respondents (76 percent) thought fewer than 1 million pets were euthanized in shelters each year. The real number is closer to 4 million, Maddalena said. “So, while the public knows there is a problem, the public doesn’t know just how serious that problem is,” she said.

The online survey was conducted March 14-24, 2009.

According to the survey, about 40 percent of respondents acquired their dog or cat without doing advance research. In addition, 76 percent of pets were acquired from sources other than animal shelters. The top reasons people didn’t adopt pets from shelters included the desire for a specific breed or type of pet and uncertainty about shelters and the pet adoption process.

The top two motivators for adopting a pet: wanting to “save a life” and believing that pets from shelters are “some of the best companion animals.”

The biggest barriers to spaying and neutering included confusion about the right age for performing the procedure and the cost of the procedure itself. Still, 65 percent of respondents said their pet was spayed or neutered.

The survey showed that 13 percent of dog owners and 19 percent of cat owners have experienced the birth of at least one litter—but typically unintentionally.

Another 20 percent of dog owners and 12 percent of cat owners said they wanted their family to see a litter being born.

PetSmart Charities is sharing its survey findings to raise awareness about pet homelessness and to help create lifesaving solutions.

“We hope that by providing this data to others who share our passion for saving the lives of homeless pets, we can break down the barriers to pet adoption and spay/neuter that survey respondents identified,” Maddalena said. “We can all use the data to develop new practices and messages based on what we now know to be key motivators and barriers.”

Download a copy of the report at www.tinyurl.com/yzxhlxk. [April 2010 PET AGE]