Do intentional "shaming" posts on social media actually help animals?

[Sticky_Situation]

Especially around the holidays, it seems like Facebook gets flooded with posts intentionally designed to shame anyone who has surrendered an animal to a shelter. I’m not talking about the generic posts advising people not to get a puppy for Christmas unless they are prepared for a long term commitment — I mean the ones that specifically shame actual people who have surrendered animals (usually dogs).

Dont get me wrong … I absolutely don’t think it’s ok to take your older dog to the shelter to make room for a new puppy, and if you do that you’re probably a horrible person. But some of these rescues will put out attention-grabbing ads for animals available to adopt that say things along the lines of “this poor baby was dumped at the shelter by his family … on Christmas Eve!”

To me, the shelters/rescues blatantly shaming those who surrender animals just makes it more likely that other will neglect their animals, turn them loose, or place them in bad situations rather than taking them to the shelter to avoid being shamed by the organizations that claim to have the animals’ best interest at heart. I’m guessing it’s a ploy to get the animals adopted more quickly by making people feel pity, but I could see it backfiring and making the animals pay the price.

And although in a perfect world everyone would keep their dog and care for it lovingly for its whole life, there are reasons other than being a horrible POS human being that may cause a person to surrender an animal … maybe the owner was an elderly person whose health is declining and they were no longer able to care for it, or maybe the owner is in severe financial trouble and can’t afford to provide proper care to an animal and live somewhere that allows pets.

[JBD]

I doubt the people in question ever see those posts.

[coloredhorse]

Honestly? It’s marketing. And it’s marketing that works. Those ads draw people to the dogs/cats in question. People love to take in a “hard luck case” and feel superior to the losers who dumped this perfectly lovable animal at the shelter. And since this advertising method works, shelters and rescues are highly motivated to keep doing it.

[shayaalliard]

I know of at least one shaming post that made some difference, since I was the one who wrote it. A local BO with sick starving barn cats (she fed 10 cats ONE CUP of food a day, TOTAL), dumped a pitiful sick kitty in my friend’s front yard. I knew the cat, so I knew it was her. I called her out publicly, and she did not deny it, and has since said she would do better with future cats. She got a fair bit of pressure over it I think, and I hear things are better. Still dislike her- awful woman- and I paid the 90.00 to put the cat to sleep- he had huge tumors in his mouth.

[Sticky_Situation]

@shayaalliard IMO that situation is a bit different, as that woman dumped off the cat in someone’s yard in very bad shape, rather than being a situation where someone took a basically healthy animal to a shelter because they either didn’t want it or were unable to keep it. A personal social media post calling someone out for dumping an animal on the side of the road is also different from a shelter or rescue publicly shaming a person than brought the animal to them … I’m afraid that the latter are more likely to result in more animals being dumped on the side of the road instead of surrendered to shelters, because I don’t see them magically making someone who has an unwanted animal decide to keep it forever, and they definitely won’t make someone who loves their animal but can’t care for it suddenly able to do so.

And I agree, it’s probably an effective marketing technique … I just don’t know that it’s one without negative consequences.