It's not entirely hopeless for overpopulated shelters ...

Not if they follow this example, that is. Thousands and thousands of dogs are getting saved literally each week via "transfers", ie. transferring animals from overcrowded shelters to other housings that still have some place left. This is particularly helpful for high-kill shelters that really just don't have any more room for new arrivals, which just keep coming nonetheless.

PetSmart Charities' Rescue Waggin' is the volume leader in moving pets from shelters where there's no chance they'll be adopted to shelters where they're almost certain to get new homes quickly.

Its four transport trucks carry dogs and puppies from shelters mostly in the Midwest and South (92,000 animals are euthanized annually in Louisiana shelters alone, Smith says) to shelters primarily in the North and Northeast, where pet owners have long sterilized their pets and overpopulation has largely been brought under control.

In four years, Rescue Waggin' has transported more than 25,000 dogs for placement in new homes; officials expect to cover 400,000 miles this year and move 8,000 to 10,000 dogs and puppies. "They're generally adopted within three days of reaching the receiving shelter," says Kimberly Noetzel of PetSmart Charities.

In Los Angeles, Pup My Ride has, in less than two years, saved more than 1,000 small dogs that were "red-tagged," or scheduled to be put down. Animal lovers looked across state lines and took advantage of a supply-and-demand reality.

Thinking of the thousands of innocent animals that are put down each week, the millions and millions each year, in shelters across the U.S. ... and that's just in one country in the world. This is just a comparatively small step compared to all that we'd need done to cull this ever-growing problem of animal overpopulation. Remember: there are always other ways to get rid of a problem other than killing the problem animals that make it up. This is just one example ... Hopefully there are many more out there that I'm just not aware of. One can always hope.