An animal shelter in Poland has suspended the adoption of puppies before Christmas as part of a campaign to highlight that dogs should not be treated as gifts.
“Please do not adopt or buy animals as a present,” wrote volunteers at the shelter in the city of Białystok. “We appeal to you to show good sense on this issue.”
“This is a very clear signal…that we oppose the treatment of animals as objects,” the shelter’s head, Anna Jaroszewicz, told the Polish Press Agency (PAP). She notes that in the past various shelters in Poland have introduced similar policies before Christmas.
“We would love for them [the puppies] to find homes,” she added, but it must be “with responsible people who will treat these animals as a friend, a family member, and not simply as an object that can be given as a gift”.
Adoptions of dogs under six months old have been suspended until 7 January, though Jaroszewicz emphasises that adoptions of other dogs are continuing as normal.
One of the shelter’s volunteers appealed for people to consider adopting older dogs, who can find the cold winter harder to deal with in the shelter. Of 120 dogs currently at the facilities, almost 20 are over 10 years old.
Last year, the animal shelter in the city of Gdańsk suspended the adoption of all dogs and cats between 17 December and 3 January as part of a similar campaign.
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
