ASPCAThis story has it all.
You'll be inspired and happy to know that there are people out there doing good work, like Daisy Fuentes, but you'll probably also tear up and be sorry that there aren't enough people like Daisy Fuentes to go around. The actress and model has made it her mission over the past few years to help the ASPCA (maker of those commercials that really make you bawl) in its fight against animal homelessness—and what she had to say on behalf of these animals had us racing for the tissues.
"It's something that, the more I learned, the more I read and the more I understood, the more I thought I wanted to let people know about," Fuentes exclusively tells E! News.
"Shelters take care the best they can, but they have limited space and they hope that people will come in and adopt. The longer they sit at the shelter, the more to the back of the shelter they get put. But the ones that are super cute and cuddly and easily adoptable are at the front, easily accessible—and others, unfortunately, get put to the back and people pass them by. And so when their time is up, there's a time limit—and I think all shelters have different time limits, it's either by time or it's by space. So when they are out of space the ones that have been there the longest get put on the list to be euthanized. And the statistics, just to give you an idea, over 7 million animals enter shelters each year, and 3 million are euthanized."
"People need to adopt more…we need to put these animals in loving homes, and less animals will be killed," Fuentes added. "People are still going to puppy mills and they're going to breeders– people keep breeding and buying them. This needs to slow down."
And she isn't just speaking out about the heartbreaking cause—she's been taking action, too.
"The fostering program is also very important because you're genuinely saving lives. I fostered two pit bulls, they were both found as strays and were on the list to be euthanized," the La Voz Kids host continued. "I could see their potential to be the sweetest dogs. I could also see the potential of them being you know, right back at the shelter if they were with the wrong person because they're pit bulls that weigh about 100 pounds.
"There is a lot of prejudice and if you don't know how to really work with these kinds of dogs they can be a liability. I bonded with them within a few weeks, they got sweeter and sweeter and more attentive and obedient by the day, and cuddly. I ended up taking them to an adoption event where they sat in these crates and people just look them over and every lovely family that passed by would stop and look, would play, but would also say, 'Oh, he's too big we don't have the room, we wish we could take him.'
"Aat the end of the day, I knew I had to adopt them."
Awww...
"Perfectly beautiful, wonderful dogs that could be amazing family companions are passed up," she concluded. "So, when they don't get adopted and their time has come to be euthanized, that's when the rescues are allowed to come in and pull dogs to rescue. But in order to do that, fosters have to be available. They have to have fosters, or, people ready to adopt them. When there's no more space or when time is up, shelters will euthanize.
"I'm a big supporter of ASPCA, I genuinely care about the cause and am a big advocate for adoption and helping decrease animal homelessness. It's very important to have your pet spayed or neutered. I don't think people are informed enough, they think it will be too expensive, and they don't know how to access services. ASPCA is really making it easy for people to get the help they need."
Click for more information on how to get involved with the ASPCA today.