Each year in Richland and Lexington Counties over 23,000 dogs and cats enter two main municipal shelters and each year over 19,000 of those same dogs and cats are put to death. Companion animal overpopulation is rampant in South Carolina and continues to escalate. The Midlands currently has an 83-86% euthanasia rate compared to the national average of 64%. The majority of these animals are happy and healthy and able to be adopted into loving homes. Most of them were someone's pet but as fate and circumstances would have it they were unlucky enough to find themselves in a shelter.

In this day and time there are other, more humane, means of dealing with companion pet overpopulation. Preventing companion animal births through wide scale spay/neuter initiatives is the key to resolving this issue. Many such programs have proven successful across the United States and not only definitively reduce pet overpopulation and the need for euthanasia but, by extension, reduce the escalating tax burden of animal control. Without intervention, municipal animal control budgets will continue to rise as the pet population rises with no end in sight.

Project Pet believes firmly that if pets aren't born then they do not have to die. Please watch this short video which more fully explains the issue at hand.