Oct 13, 2007 9:56 pm US/Eastern
Web Site Aims To Save Dogs From Destruction
NEW YORK (AP) ―
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The Dogs In Danger Web site, Dogsindanger.com
CBS
Sweet William, a young black Labrador retriever in Illinois, has two days to live.
Sandy, a golden female Jindo in New York, also has just two days left. Kate Hepburn, a tan female boxer in California, has 18 days to live.
On Saturday, these were some of the dogs in shelters across the country slated for death - their fate posted on a Web site that aims to save their lives by offering them for adoption.
Each is tagged with a death date set by a shelter - and a countdown clock showing the days, or hours, until the animal is destroyed.
Dogsindanger.com works with more than 120 shelters nationwide that destroy dogs. How much time the dogs get before death varies from state to state. In New York City, for instance, a stray dog must be kept a minimum of three days, while a shelter has the legal right to immediately destroy an animal that is abandoned there by its owner.
About 4 million dogs are put to death each year in the United States, by injection or gas.
In the three weeks since the site has been up, dozens of dogs have found new homes. Their photos are posted on a section of the site marked "Success Stories." The images of dogs that didn't make it adorn the site's "In Memoriam" wall.
"It's not the fault of the shelters," said Alex Aliksanyan, a pet adoption advocate who made money in the Internet travel business. "They don't like doing this, but they have to abide by the law, which requires a shelter to control its animal population."
Aliksanyan spent a half-million of his own dollars to start The Buddy Fund Inc., a nonprofit organization that operates the site and is named after his miniature American Eskimo dog.
"I've done well, and it was time to give something back," said the 50-year-old Turkish-born entrepreneur of Armenian heritage.
(© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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