Man Cages Himself in Shelter to Raise Awareness on Abandoned Animals

Oct 5, 2012— -- Every year in the Miami-Dade County Animal Service 37,000 dogs and cats are abandoned. On average 20,000 of those don't make it out of the shelter and are euthanized. If you do the math, that turns out to be more than 54 animals per day being killed because of over population and abandonment.

But this is not a problem that only affects Miami-Dade. The Animal Care and Control in New York city received more than 31,000 animals in 2011, a number that has gone down by 35% since 2004 thanks to the shelter's outreach program.

In order to generate awareness about the problem that animal shelters face across the country, Michael Rosenberg, founder of Pets' Trust Miami, an initiative to improve animal welfare, decided to live in a shelter cage for a weekend.

Just like an abandoned dog, he was dropped off at the animal service center in Miami-Dade today and will be released on Sunday. Rosenberg will spend his entire time there inside a concrete chain-link cage just like any surrendered dog would.

Cesar Milan, best known as 'the dog whisperer', sent a support message for Rosenberg adding that he hopes he is 'the last one inside that cage.

Rosenberg's efforts don't stop there. Pets' Trust Miami managed to include a pet-friendly question in the November 6 ballot of the Miami-Dade Comission. The proposal says that the owner of a $100,000 property would pay about $10 to finance low-cost spay/neuter clinics.