Connect with us

Utah

Animal abandonment is up in Utah. Here’s why

Published

on

Animal abandonment is up in Utah. Here’s why


More than 100 furry friends were abandoned last year as the Humane Society of Utah reported a massive jump compared to years past.

2023 was a rough year for some shelters in the state. West Valley City Animal Shelter and Salt Lake County Animal Services reported that they were overflowing with pets waiting to be adopted. The majority of these animals were strays or lost pets.

“Animal Control has encountered numerous dogs tied to poles in public places with notes pleading for a home,” Lisa Weiss, animal care/community outreach coordinator at Weber County Animal Services, said. “Recently, we found four 10-week-old puppies left in a wire crate at our doorstep in freezing temperatures without any blankets or coats.”

These puppies have since been adopted. But for some animals, the road to adoption can be long and difficult.

Advertisement

When an animal is abandoned on the Humane Society of Utah doorstep or the group is notified about an animal abandoned in a different location, the first step is to contact the local authorities, according to Guinn Shuster, director of marketing at the Humane Society of Utah. Then, there’s something called a stray hold, which is a period of time where the animal is held and is unable to be adopted.

In many cases, Salt Lake County Animal Services will approve the Humane Society of Utah to serve as the stray hold in their facilities. “We often work with many other shelters across the state where if the animal isn’t adopted there and they’re low on resources or they’re overcrowded, we’ll transfer the animals here because we have such good foot traffic and a high rate of adoption,” Shuster said in an interview at the Humane Society of Utah’s Murray facilities Tuesday.

Though animals can’t express their feelings through words, abandoning an animal can have a negative impact on them that they show through their behavior.

“Changes in environments, changes in routine can cause a lot of stress for an animal,” Shuster said. “If you have animal who’s been used to spending time in a home environment and now they’re outdoors or they’re in a shelter environment, that can be really stressful for them.”

Advertisement

A dog named Smokey barks at the Humane Society of Utah shelter in Murray on Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2024. Officials say pets are being abandoned at a high rate in Utah.

Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News

In addition to causing the animal stress, abandoning an animal is also illegal. Utah Code states “a person is guilty of cruelty to an animal if the person, without legal privilege to do so, intentionally, knowingly, recklessly, or with criminal negligence: fails to provide necessary food, water, care, or shelter for an animal in the person’s custody; abandons an animal in the person’s custody.”

Advertisement

The main reasons why people abandon an animal in Utah have to do with housing. According to Shuster, housing insecurities and the difficulty of finding affordable apartments that accept pets are big reasons why the rate of animal abandonment has gone up.

Right now, the Humane Society of Utah is seeing more dogs abandoned than cats, due to housing issues. “It’s a lot easier for people to find rental apartments for smaller animals or cats than it is large breed dogs.”

In addition to seeing more dogs abandoned than cats, Shuster also said the kinds of dogs being abandoned right now are purebred golden retrievers, pointers, springers and other purebred dogs.

“The majority of animals being surrendered to us are not returned adopters,” Shuster explained. This means that people are surrendering more dogs from breeders than they were before. She also added that people adopting a pet during the COVID-19 pandemic doesn’t seem to account for the majority of the animals being abandoned this past year.

There are resources available for pet owners who find themselves struggling financially.

Advertisement

“People who are struggling financially and are already receiving services, maybe they’re on food stamps or Medicaid, we have a low cost spay and neuter clinic that’s open to the entire public,” Shuster said. “But we also have a special program called the SNIP program where if you’re receiving some of those additional services, you’ll get an even more discounted cost on spaying and neutering or vaccinations.”

Local pet food banks exist across the the state, including one run by the Salt Lake County Animal Services and another known as Ruff Haven Pet Pantry. Street Dawg Crew of Utah also offers free supplies for animals. Ruff Haven Crisis Sheltering offers crisis sheltering for these animals. The Humane Society of Utah can sometimes help out with emergency surgery.

The Best Friends Animal Society has a list of other resources that pet owners can turn to in times of financial hardship.

“We also have a pet retention program here because we want to keep families together,” Shuster said. The Humane Society of Utah can help you discover resources so you can provide loving care for your pet through difficult times.

Advertisement

merlin_3016176.jpg

Humane Society of Utah social media coordinator Maddie Cushing and Savannah Forbush play with Domingo at the shelter in Murray on Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2024. Officials say pets are being abandoned at a high rate in Utah.

Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News

Shuster said if the situation requires you to no longer have your pet, there are other options for you.

Advertisement

The Humane Society of Utah has a private pet rehoming page attached to its website. “You can list your pet with all their information and the people will actually contact you directly, so there’s no middleman. You don’t have to go through us,” Shuster said. “That page gets hundreds of views daily.”

Ruff Haven Crisis Sheltering also offers rehoming, too.

If it’s a case where you’re living in a rental and the landlord says you have to remove your pet from the premises, the Humane Society of Utah can work with you to surrender the animal and communicate the surrender date to your landlord, Shuster said.

With rising animal abandonment and some shelters struggling with overflowing animals, there’s something that you can do to help — adopt a pet.

Before you begin adopting a pet, Shuster said it’s important to look at your lifestyle. “Maybe you’re an adventure person and you’re ready for an active companion to go hiking with your or a couch potato to watch Netflix with.” Looking at different animals and various breeds can help you find one that corresponds with your lifestyle.

Advertisement

If you’re up in the mountains all day, an Australian shepherd might be perfect for you. Or if you prefer to stay inside, a cuddly cat might be more your speed.

After identifying the right kind of animal for you and researching the breed, it’s important to go meet the dog or cat or rabbit. “We always encourage people to meet the animal,” Shuster said. “Because even if you have a purebred German shepherd that you think is going to behave a certain way, they may not behave how you expect a German shepherd to behave.”

But it’s also critical to make sure you’re ready to adopt before you do so.

Say you’re unsure about whether or not you are ready to adopt. Try and spend time with your friend’s animal or try out fostering to see if you can handle the responsibility that comes along with animal ownership.

“Fostering is a great short-term commitment for people who can’t bring home a pet permanently, but can for a couple of weeks,” she said. “That often helps the shelters open up space for animal that can move through in that same time and get adopted.”

Advertisement





Source link

Utah

Utah Jazz Reacts: Who should the Jazz draft?

Published

on

Utah Jazz Reacts: Who should the Jazz draft?


The NBA Draft is less than a week away, and the Utah Jazz have a big decision to make. What’s difficult for the Jazz is that there isn’t an obvious choice between some incredible prospects at the top of the draft: AJ Dybantsa, Darryn Peterson, and Cam Boozer. Obviously, everything depends on what the Washington Wizards decide to do with their pick. But with all the smoke screens we’ve seen, it’s not clear who will be available to the Jazz.

That’s where you come in. If you were the Utah Jazz and you had the chance to choose between AJ Dybantsa, Darryn Peterson, and Cam Boozer, who would you choose?

Welcome to SB Nation Reacts, a survey of fans across the NBA. Throughout the year we ask questions of the most plugged-in Jazz fans and fans across the country. Sign up here to participate in the weekly emailed surveys.



Source link

Advertisement
Continue Reading

Utah

Utah first lady Abby Cox optimistic about legislative moves to strengthen child literacy

Published

on

Utah first lady Abby Cox optimistic about legislative moves to strengthen child literacy


SALT LAKE CITY — Utah is no stranger to discourse surrounding early child literacy.

While the Beehive State generally performs higher than other states in terms of proficiency measures, its leaders still recognize — especially post-COVID — that it’s a real issue that demands serious solutions.

A legislative audit released Tuesday said Utah school teachers and administrators should focus enhanced attention not only on third-graders, the traditional benchmark for early literacy, but also on first-graders, where data starts spotting early literacy challenges in young students.

Then, Utah first lady Abby Cox on Wednesday added to that discussion, speaking with Utah education and policy leaders about the need to meet the literacy crisis head-on and ways Utah has worked to do just that.

Advertisement

“We’re not in the best place that we can be, and we’re a little ahead of the national average; we always have been, but that still isn’t great. We’re in a moment where everybody’s starting to realize this … business community, educators, all of us coming together to realize there’s an issue here,” Cox said.

She mentioned the passage of SB241 during the 2026 legislative session, which committed $25.6 million to literacy coaching, increased the statewide goal to have 80% of third-graders reading at grade-level by 2030 and includes an intervention measure requiring struggling third-graders to repeat the grade — “except in cases of certain good cause exemption.”

“I know we can get 97-plus percent of our kiddos reading on grade level by third grade. We can do this,” Cox said.

She also emphasized the need to get “attention-sucking machines,” AKA cellphones, out of classrooms — something top lawmakers in the state have made strides to emphasize.

July 1 will mark the start of a new Utah law ushered in with the passage of SB69 that essentially places a bell-to-bell ban on cellphones at Utah’s K-12 public schools, unless a school or district opts for a looser policy.

Advertisement

The latest piece of legislation was built upon a similar bill passed during the 2025 session that set a default policy barring students from using their phones during class time.

Despite those restrictions, many lawmakers and educators argued they didn’t go far enough, which led to SB69.

“I don’t think we all know enough about how wonderful this is going to be,” Cox said, adding that data has shown library book checkouts have skyrocketed in schools that have instituted daylong cellphone ban policies.

“I talked to a principal who, after the first day of going bell-to-bell, walked into his high school lunch room, thinking there was a fight, because there was all this chaos and noise … and it was just (students) communicating with each other, playing cards, bringing little games,” Cox said. “It was just beautiful to see, and I think we’re going to see an incredible resurgence as we implement this statewide.”

The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.

Advertisement



Source link

Continue Reading

Utah

Here’s why Bosnia-Herzegovina fans in Utah are living a ‘dream’ during the World Cup

Published

on

Here’s why Bosnia-Herzegovina fans in Utah are living a ‘dream’ during the World Cup


The nation’s soccer team practiced in front of fans this week at Real Salt Lake’s stadium in Sandy.

(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Fans cheer as Bosnia-Herzegovina players practice for the World Cup during an open training session at America First Field in Sandy on Monday.

The majority of the Bosnians living in Utah did not leave for the Wasatch Front under favorable circumstances.

The Bosnian War in the mid-1990s brought more than 100,000 refugees to the United States, with thousands settling in Salt Lake City.

Thirty years later, however, a moment of celebration brought thousands of Bosnian-Americans together with the arrival of their country’s soccer team in Utah.

Blue and white jerseys flooded the plaza and stands of Real Salt Lake’s Sandy stadium on Monday to watch Bosnia-Herzegovina’s soccer team, which has made Utah its home base in between World Cup games.

Advertisement

(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Bosnia-Herzegovina players practice for the World Cup during an open training session at America First Field in Sandy on Monday.

“It was like a dream,” Anel Alagic, who was born in Bosnia but raised in Salt Lake, said. “That we qualified for the World Cup was crazy, but then they told us that the home base would never be here in Salt Lake. It’s surreal.”

The festivities extended beyond the field, as well, with several vendors and volunteers serving Bosnian food and drinks, including its signature coffee from the world’s largest coffee pot, which was made in Bosnia.

The pot is traveling with the national team, heading to Los Angeles on Thursday for a match against Switzerland and then to Seattle for Bosnia’s June 24 match against Qatar.

A dream just to qualify

Bosnia has qualified for the World Cup just twice since declaring its independence in 1992, with the first time coming in Brazil in 2014. This year’s team qualified in dramatic fashion, defeating four-time World Cup champion Italy on penalty kicks.

Advertisement

The Bosnian fans are not taking their team’s presence in the World Cup for granted, with a viral video showing thousands marching in Toronto before the first game and 40,000 to 50,000 expected to be in attendance in Los Angeles on Thursday.

Two Bosnian restaurants in Salt Lake, Cafe on Main and Old Bridge Cafe, will both be closing their doors on Thursday to make the trek to California in support of their country.

And it’s not just people born in Bosnia jumping on the bandwagon, with Cafe on Main saying several Americans showed up in Bosnia jerseys to watch the opening game at the restaurant last week in a packed house.

“I’ve invited a lot of my co-workers and friends that typically don’t even watch soccer,” Alagic said of Bosnia World Cup fever catching on, thanks to events like the open training session. “I was like, ‘We’re having this event. Show out.’ I’ve seen a lot of people here, so it’s cool.”

Bringing people together

(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Fans cheer as Bosnia-Herzegovina players practice for the World Cup during an open training session at America First Field in Sandy on Monday.

Advertisement

“Because of the war, our community is all over the world,” said RSL goalkeeper coach Mirza Harambasic, who is Bosnian. “It’s especially strong in the United States, and it’s strong here in Salt Lake City. So obviously everyone is so excited, so happy to be here, so happy to support.”

Harambasic was born in Bosnia and, like many others, came to the U.S. in the ‘90s. He helped coordinate Monday’s event and was confident in Salt Lake’s ability to accommodate the soccer needs of a World Cup team.

“When you talk about an environment to be successful, I don’t think there are many better places in the United States,” Harambasic said. “As far as city, lifestyle, training at elevation, and then obviously the facilities that RSL provides.”

With the first two games in Bosnia’s Group B ending in 1-1 draws, the top two spots are still very much up for the taking, giving fans just enough hope that the country can advance beyond the World Cup group stage for the first time in its history.

sltrib.com is now free to access — no subscription required. We made this decision because we believe access to trustworthy, independent news shouldn’t depend on what you can afford — especially as misinformation and AI-generated content continue to rise.

Advertisement

Free to read doesn’t mean free to produce. Our reporters show up every day to ask hard questions and hold powerful institutions to account. That work takes resources. As a nonprofit newsroom, we rely on support from people who believe it matters. Make a donation today to fund local news that serves Utah communities.

You can help us bring more local news to more communities today.



Source link

Continue Reading
Advertisement

Trending