Testing the Hypothesis, Part 1

1. I’d like to pursue an opportunity within animal shelters in some states having to deal with their euthanasia policy. 
2. I want to try and find a way to cut back on shelters that still have euthanasia policies, or maybe find an alternate solution for overflow pets. 
1. The who: Animal shelters in the United States.
2. The what: With many shelter, as they get too full, they are forced to put down some of their stray animals to make room for more. 
3. The why: Many shelters in big cities like Chicago fill up quickly, and there’s not technically a national law that says shelters have to report the number of found animals as well as those put down or re-homed.
3. I believe there’s an opportunity here simply because there has got to be a better solution that putting down so many animals due to lack of space or resources. I’ve seen many nonprofit organizations tackle issues like not having clean water or schools for some third-world countries, so I believe there’s a way that the animal shelter issue could be solved. As far as the “who” for this, yes, most animal shelters either deal with this issue in their own shelters, or they are trying to prevent neighboring shelters from having to resort to such extreme measures. For testing the what, I kind of mentioned this before when I said that if a shelter doesn’t specifically have this problem themselves, then they know of other shelters nearby that do, so in that effect it kind of affects them all. It happens with dogs and cats alike also, so there’s not a certain bias there to worry about. For the whys, most people that I talked to had the same basic why: because killing animals is something that needs to change and no one wants to admit that it happens as often as it does. A few other whys in the range that I got were from past shelter employees who just hated dealing with the process because it was so sad, and also people that had a pet go missing and were so worried it might end up getting euthanized at a shelter before they could find it. 
4. Interviews- After my five interviews, I;m happy with the opportunity I selected. From the responses I got, people do realize that this is an issue that needs fixing, most people just aren’t sure how to go about it. In all honestly, I understand why they would think that because after looking at some statistics, there are millions of animals that are put down on a yearly basis. However, a few of the people I interviewed made the point that even if one shelter makes the change, there could be a slow spreading effect which could end up helping lots of animals. 
5. Given my interviews, I now know a little bit more about animal fostering, which I was kind of oblivious to before. Some shelters (including the Alachua county one) I feel like this could be a good part of a solution to explore, perhaps with an extended network of animal fostering. Overall, the interviews gave me more of a feel on the state level of animal shelters, because all of the people I spoke with only really knew about Florida, so branching off to other states could be something to expand to later on.