are flown up and adopted out of the Oregon Humane Society.

There seem to be a ton of Chihuahuas -- probably a lingering result of the "purse dog" phenomenon and people like Paris Hilton.

The clinic I volunteer at often has a chihuahua and pit pull spay and neuter special because there are just so many....

I think I'll start a thread about them.

a LOT of California famers (with no breeding experience whatsoever) started their own amateur Chihuahua breeding kennels...The demand was too high and the money too great to pass up, evidently..

Flying dogs in from LV is insane.

The US btw euthanizes about 50 million dogs annually. 70,000 cats and dogs are born in Canada every day versus 10,000 human babies.

http://www.examiner.com/article/pet-overpopulation-is-a-problem-canada-so-where-do-all-the-dogs-go

it's not like Canada is some kind of no-kill nirvana for unwanted pets. Every shelter I knew when I was up there was having just as hard a time adopting out animals as the ones here.

could feed a homeless person for 75 cents a day. A little further down was a table that said they could feed an unwanted dog for $1 a day. It seemed odd to collect more for a dog than a human being but charities like these are a business. They sell an experience to their customer so the price point isn't really tied to what it costs to do whatever but rather whatever sounds good to the customer. I have to think this Las Vegas thing is very similar -- it sounds great but the reality of pet overpopulation is not going to be fixed by marketing savvy middlemen.

and of course the dog is disposable once it's hipster cred expires...

When 101 Dalmatians the live action movie came out a friend of mine working at a shelter predicted a pretty big influx from all the idiots that thought getting a new puppy was the greatest thing.

She was absolutely right, the next year they were working really hard to try to place all the now grown Dalmatian's that had taken over.

and rescue groups...

because there's definitely not a shortage of larger ones here in the Humane Societies and City Pounds. It's heartbreaking to see how many, actually, and a lot of them never find homes.

and many landlords and housing communities have a weight limit for dogs. In NYC the limit is almost always 35 pounds or less. My lease has a one animal limit written in and I almost got evicted when I got a second dog.

Many people are not prepared to deal with a real dog -- one that needs vet care, food, walks, attention, socialization and exercise. And to complicate it all further we have the Paris Hilton's of the world making dogs out to be fashion accessories.

Yeah, at first they look all cute and cuddle...meow meow like this---

Awww! Sooooo cute and nice!