Shelters are often inundated with pet surrenders, and do not want to provide a simple outlet that takes away the obligation of responsible pet ownership. Therefore, they would prefer that people try hard to find a solution before resorting to surrendering their pet to a shelter. If you must find a new home for a pet, please try posting to our adoption portal before placing the burden on the shelter. Direct adoptions work well and allow everyone to share in the accountability of their community!
No-kill shelters do wonderful work, but as a result, are often inundated with pet surrenders. In the unfortunate scenario that you have to find a new home for your pet, please read through the rehoming solution and articles on this page before contacting the shelter.
IMPORTANT: This form is only for public comments about the shelter. To contact Unicoi County Animal Shelter, please go directly to their website (link on previous page), this form will not send your comment to them.
I am disgusted to find a website like this. Just because a shelter is open admission (meaning they don’t turn anyone away), that does NOT mean they are “Pro Kill”! This is the first time I’ve heard of this horrible, slanderous term and anyone with a brain and a heart would be disgusted, too! Shame on you for aiding in the deaths of shelter animals because of your ignorant terminology. If a person sees a shelter as “bad” then they will not support it. And it’s the support from the community that shelters so desperately need in order to fulfill their purpose in SAVING lives! No shelter worker WANTS to kill animals. The REAL murderers are 1) people who are irresponsible pet owners that don’t get their pets fixed, 2) people who buy animals instead of adopting, 3) people who breed animals on purpose to sell them, and 4) people like those in charge of this website who slander the very ones they should be supporting the most. The terms “kill, no kill, and pro kill” are very misleading and contribute to the deaths of animals. Think for just a second. Most county and city shelters are a provision of the local governments for people to turn in animals they catch or they can no longer keep. These shelters are paid for by the TAXES of the community residents. They are obligated to take every cat and dog (and sometimes other animals) that is brought to them, no matter how filled the shelter is. Now tell me, if that was YOUR situation, what would you do with all of those animals if people just kept bringing them in but no one wanted to support you with their donations, volunteering, fostering and adopting? Can you magically house hundreds and hundreds of animals in a relatively small building? No? Then WHAT are you going to do with ALL of those animals?! EXACTLY! You would have NO choice but to humanely euthanize many of those animals. But if you take that SAME shelter and have tons of support coming in from the community with people donating, volunteering, fostering and adopting, then that shelter would not be FORCED TO DO THE DIRTY WORK OF THE VERY SAME COMMUNITY THAT CONDEMNS THEM!!!! The creators of this website are SICK, IGNORANT, ARROGANT PRICKS and this website should be taken down. SHAME SHAME SHAME on you. We ALL need to be responsible and spay/neuter our animals and SHOWER our local shelters with love and support. And you need to STOP using the “kill” terms. There are TWO types of shelters: Open Admission and Limited Admission. Open Admission means they have to take in every animal no matter how packed they are, and Limited Admission means they can turn people away if they are at capacity or if they just don’t want that specific animal. Educate yourselves and stop spreading this evil, sickening lie.
Your perspectives are valuable for people to hear - and truly represent the "status quo" way of thinking. What you are missing, and the reason that so many organizations and even entire states have become "no kill", is that the status quo is no longer accepted because models like the no-kill equation (https://www.nokilladvocacycenter.org/no-kill-equation.html) have been proven over and over again to be effective at eliminating killing in any community, regardless of funding, as soon as the decision is made to stop the killing. Set aside any preconceptions and biases you have and read the model objectively. If you are a reader, also read more about the history of the animal shelter industry in the book "redemption" by Nathan Winograd. Websites like this one exist in order to save animals by promoting education and progressive thinking on difficult, emotional topics like this one. To not use the words "kill" and "no kill" is to lessen the emotional impact that they carry with them, and therefore minimize the realization of the outcome that each word implies - one results in the death of an animal that did not need to die, the other results in allowing an animal to live and helping to improve their lives as they live. So I applaud websites like this for the approach that they take in the wording and the help that they provide to the cause of saving lives through advocacy efforts.