World Dog Day: the most loved animal is also the most abandoned

Every July 21, World Dog Day is commemorated, an event created in 2004 following an alert from the World Health Organization that revealed that 70% of dogs in the world do not have a home.

In this context, it is noted that this date cannot be reduced to a tribute: it is, above all, an invitation to name a contradiction that Latin America has not yet resolved.

Dogs are the animal with whom humans have shared home, affection, and daily life for more than 15,000 years. They are culturally considered the best friend of humans.

And yet, they are also one of the groups of animals most affected by systematic abandonment, mistreatment, and the absence of public policies that guarantee their welfare. Latin America has one of the largest populations of street dogs in the world, and the figure has not improved substantially in recent decades.

Abandonment is not an accident. It is a model.

The problem of abandonment cannot be analyzed as a sum of irresponsible individual decisions. It is, fundamentally, the result of a system that for decades normalized the purchase, indiscriminate breeding, and discarding of animals.

The breeding industry and pet stores profit from the demand for animals while shelters throughout the region are collapsing. Communities with fewer resources have less access to sterilization services and veterinary care.

Abandonment does not hit evenly: it is concentrated where the state is less present and where inequalities are deeper.

Behind every abandoned dog is a human decision. And behind that decision, structural conditions that a date on the calendar is not enough to transform, but it is enough to make visible.

“We call ‘man’s best friend’ the animal we abandon the most. That paradox says a lot about how we relate to animals. At Animal Interseccional we believe that genuine affection translates into concrete decisions: adopt instead of buying, sterilize, do not abandon, and demand policies that protect animals beyond one day a year. The impact of those daily decisions is real, cumulative, and transformative”, said Jesica Bon Denis, founder and executive director of Animal Interseccional.

The impact of daily decisions

This date is not only to celebrate the dogs that have a home, but to make visible the millions that still do not. Adopting instead of buying, sterilizing, not abandoning, and demanding the prohibition of the sale of animals in breeding facilities and stores are decisions that, when added together, determine whether next year we will still be talking about the same problem or its solution.

The welfare of companion animals is not an isolated individual responsibility. It is a collective construction.