Cecilia CarboneReflective IntroductionBrownUWRITE4/22/2015The topic I chose to gather sources for a research paper was: How can people help reduce overpopulation in animal shelters? I chose this issue because it was related to my practicum. I chose the Humane Society of Concord and Greater Cabarrus County to study and a big problem they have is constantly getting new dogs to look after. Thats the purpose of the shelter but its concerning that the amount of dogs coming in never slows down. A rescue came and took twenty dogs once and then two days later the shelter was completely full again. This issue isnt just at this particular shelter but all over the United States. Millions of dogs and cats are put into shelters every year and a large majority of those animals end up being euthanized. I know that there are ways to reduce these numbers and this topic appeals to me because it gives me information on how to help stop reduce this problem. I feel this evokes an ideal of power-topic because everyone who has a pet just cringes at the idea of their own pet having to sleep on a shelter floor or being put down. Power in this case is the ability to have a person open their eyes and see a problem that might never affect their everyday life. Power is going to make someone realize that this problem is worth trying to fix. To research this topic I first used my own experience, volunteering and my journal of what its like volunteering. This was important to use for research because its my own personal experience and through this experience this topic became real to me. I interviewed a women that worked at the shelter and asked her some questions about what its like working there. After that I went on thisibelieve.org and saw that other people felt very strong about saving a life rather than buying a pet from a breeder. This related to the topic because if a person buys a puppy from a store or breeder thats just encouraging these people to keep breeding while theres millions of dogs and cats that need a home.I continued my research by going on google scholar and got a couple articles with data about the kinds of dogs and cats that are typically relinquished and the ones that are euthanized. There were also articles about veterinary practitioners doing what they could to reduce the problem. I mainly learned that theres a variety of dogs and cats that get relinquished and theres multiple factors to this. For example a human factor may be they cant financial support owning a pet and an animal factor is the pet is too wild or aggressive and the person doesnt know how to handle it. I also learned that a big issue was people not spaying and neutering their pets. What surprised me was that neutering was seen as the more crucial procedure. It made sense once I read it because a male dog can get multiple females pregnant at once. Id just never thought of it that way. After my research I became more passionate about this subject than before. Humans play a big role in this issue and they can greatly reduce it. At first I thought shelters filled up mostly through stays but after researching a great majority comes from relinquishment, owner surrender. People will get a dog or cat expecting them to behave without even training them. They get these animals not thinking about the responsibility that comes with them. Its sad that a great population of dogs and cats suffer due to the carelessness of peoples actions.The article I found most helpful was the article, Human and Animal Factors Related to the Relinquishment of Dogs and Cats in 12 Selected Animal Shelters in the United States, by M.D Salman, John G. New, Janet M Scarlett, and Philip H Kris because it showed different reasons why dogs and cats were relinquished. The studys purpose was to understand why and then work at fixing the problem which is mainly what my topic needs. This project has helped me learned how to get really in-depth with my research. By writing about all my sources it helped me organized my thoughts and I really knew where the information I needed was. I learned that you cant just use the first article you find on a search engine because its not always going to be reliable. Checking through the list of what made a source a good source was helpful because I really got a good idea of what my sources needed to be considered reliable. This can help me with future research papers or even just looking up information on my own free time because Ill know if the source can be trusted or not. This project was very beneficial.