It is a magnificent gesture but it must remain a thoughtful gesture.
Adopting an animal means making a long-term commitment and accepting certain constraints.
When all this has not been considered, many dogs and cats end up abandoned in SPA centers, where volunteers struggle to care for them and find them a home.
This is even the major objective of this weekend of open doors which always attract a lot of people to the shelters.
“There are unfortunately more and more abandonments, notes Gérard Boulisset, president of the SPA association in charge of the Essuilet farm center, in Essuiles-Saint-Rimault.
Lots of cats and big dogs, that people buy when they're little, not realizing they're going to grow up, and then they abandon them.
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Fairly corpulent dogs are the most numerous for adoption.
In fact, it is a large majority of large dogs who occupy the boxes of the refuge, which they leave regularly to be walked on the 5 ha of the farm.
Many dogs of the American Staffordshire type, very fashionable to buy… but also very numerous to be abandoned.
In the boxes, the fright of some suggests bad treatment in their first life, for which it will undoubtedly take a lot of patience for future masters to tame them again.
The vision of all these dogs behind bars is difficult to bear for a young girl in tears, whom her mother consoles.
“It's hard to see these poor beasts hiding in the back of the box, confirms Nathalie, who came with her whole family from Montreuil-sur-Thérain.
We are five people, we already have two dogs and three cats,
this represents a budget every month, just for the treatments.
But we still came to adopt another dog.
They are living beings, they must be treated well.
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70 cats are currently adoptable at the Essuiles SPA centre.
In the courtyard of the farm, a few cats grant themselves a little more freedom by strolling among visitors and volunteers. This is not the case with Boston, an 8-year-old Saint Bernard, who gets restless as soon as we approach his box, but become very calm when one of the volunteers enters the cage and comes to pet him.
He, like many others, will need the patience and affection of his new masters. In addition to dogs and cats, several rabbits are also up for adoption.
It takes 150 euros to adopt a cat, 180 euros for a male dog, 250 euros for a female.
Prices likely to drop for the oldest residents of the center.
Sums that allow the shelter to continue to operate and accommodate homeless animals.
This Sunday, it is up to visitors to offer them one.
Open doors, Essuilet SPA, open this Sunday from 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.