Underdogs: Pets, People, and Poverty

Underdogs looks into the rapidly growing initiative to provide veterinary care to underserved communities in North Carolina and Costa Rica and how those living in or near poverty respond to these forms of care. For many years, the primary focus of the humane community in the United States was to control animal overpopulation and alleviate the stray dog problem by euthanizing or sterilizing dogs and cats. These efforts succeeded by the turn of the century, and it appeared as though most pets were being sterilized and given at least basic veterinary care, including vaccinations and treatments for medical problems such as worms or mange. However, in recent years animal activists and veterinarians have acknowledged that these efforts only reached pet owners in advantaged communities, leaving over twenty million pets unsterilized, unvaccinated, and untreated in underserved communities.

The problem of getting basic veterinary services to dogs and cats in low-income communities has suddenly become spotlighted as a major issue facing animal shelters, animal rescue groups, animal control departments, and veterinarians in the United States and abroad. In the past five to ten years, animal protection organizations have launched a new focus trying to deliver basic and even more advanced veterinary care to the many underserved pets in the Unites States. These efforts pose a challenge to these groups as does pet keeping to people living in poverty across most of the world who have pets or care for street dogs.