The Basics
Companion animals, like dogs, cats, horses, fish, anything we keep as pets. There are many different problems with these.

• Spaying/Neutering Animals - This is really important, there are so many animals out there that aren't fixed and it extends the homeless animal number by 2,500 cats and dogs per hour. Every day, every hour. That's 60,000 of them a day, 1,800,000 a month, and 21,600,000 new cats and dogs per year. This is way over the amount of good caring homes available and that doesn't include the number of dogs born to licensed breeders. The unwanted animals are more often than not, put to death, either by a shelter when they have been there too long or by the original owners who find the pets a nuisance or by other causes such as cars, drowning... An ounce of prevention goes a long way to reduce these unwanted animals.
• Along the same note, Puppy Mills. The only place to get your next companion animal is the shelter. These animals need homes, and they need them soon. Puppy mills are where pet stores get their animals, they are establishments where puppies are born non-stop, 24/7. It only adds to the overpopulation problem.
• Exotic Animals - Wild animals do not belong in homes. Iguanas, macaws, orangutangs, hedgehogs, chinchillas, pot-bellied pigs. None of these belong in homes and they are often to difficult to properly care for once adopted that they are killed or abandoned. They also can carry diseases and transmit them to humans.
• Pet shops - These stores keep animals in small confined cages and in often times poor conditions.

  What Can You Do About It?
  There are lots of things YOU and I can do to help the Domestic Animals problem
  

  • Don't buy from puppy mills, pet stores, or private breeders, only get your animals from the shelters/pounds.
  • Spay or Neuter your cats and dogs

  Puppies in A Puppy Mill

  

  Hedgehogs shouldn't be kept as pets.

  

  Alligators are often abandoned after they grow much more than 5 feet.