As the summer weather begins to cool into autumn and football tops most conversations, many animal shelters are taking a deep breath to prepare for another influx of unwanted kittens and puppies, dogs and cats.

"The average dog can have two litters of as many as eight puppies, and cats can have three litters of five or more kittens each year," said Kelly Graham, the public relations contact for the Humane Society.

Consequently, one unspayed cat can produce 15 kittens and one dog can have anywhere from 10 to 16 puppies that won't have loving homes and proper care, she said. Most will die from disease, exposure, auto accidents, or be taken to a facility to be put down, she added.

"Just in Lexington and Richland counties alone, 20,000 unwanted animals are euthanized every year," she said.

Spring and summer are the biggest breeding times for dogs and cats so all of the shelters are inundated with kittens and puppies, Graham said.

"Due to the economy and so much job loss, more owners are surrendering their pets too," she said. "When you have to decide between feeding your children or feeding your dog or cat, the animals have to go."

If an animal is brought to a city or county facility, the facility has to take them. Because of the large amount of animals coming in, the shelters are forced to make difficult decisions about which ones live and which ones die.

"If they are sick or old or are deemed unadoptable for some reason, they are euthanized," Graham said. "It's not what anyone wants to do, but it's the only answer we have at the moment."

Graham said that because people won't get their animals spayed or neutered is the major reason for the overpopulation.

"People give the craziest excuses," she said. "They tell me they want the animal to have at least one litter or that their animal is an indoor or fenced animal. Well if the female is in heat, the males will jump fences or dig under them to get to her. And then the unplanned litter ends up at a shelter."

While there are many no- kill facilities, Graham said that it's an uphill battle to keep kittens and puppies healthy when they are surrounded by so many other animals.

"For the puppies the biggest threat is parvo, a horrible virus that is costly to treat and is miserable for the animal," she said. "Kittens contract upper respiratory infections because of the overcrowding. The shelters do what they can, but they simply run out of space and money."

Shelter founders across the state say much the same thing as Graham. Sandra Dollar, founder and president of Save the Strays Animal Rescue in Bethune, SC said that her three- person all- volunteer rescue operation has found homes for more than 400 dogs, a goat, a chicken, and a turkey in the past six years. But she said the over- population is not a new problem.

"The problem has been around for decades," Dollar said in an email. "The solution is still the same — killing the unwanted pets rather than preventing their births in the first place through widely available publicly funded spay/neuter programs," she said. "I will never understand why, as a society, we can always find money to kill the animals but can never seem to afford prevention through the human practice of spaying and neutering."

While people who drop off a cat or dog at a county facility may believe the animal will be adopted, Dollar said the chances are slim, and many are killed with inhumane methods.

"In the '70s I did an interview with a city pound in New Mexico that killed its unwanted animals by suffocating them in a vacuum chamber, a method that would have caused their lungs to explode after a number of pain and fear- filled minutes. Sadly, many public shelters here in South Carolina are still using equally barbaric methods, such as gas chambers into which they put as many animals as will fit, then turn on the gas, which burns their lungs until they suffocate. Again, it takes many minutes for the animals to die, during which they claw and cry and suffer. Some even manage to survive this horrific experience only to be thrown back in for another round of torture."

Graham confirmed that gas is still used in many shelters across the state but she said the Shop Road facility gave the doomed animals an injection which just let them go to sleep.

"No one wants to put an animal down," Graham said. "But we receive five to 10 calls a day from people who want to drop off their pets, and these days fewer people are adopting animals."

Graham said that the Humane Society tries to make it affordable and easy to have your animals spayed or neutered.

"You come in, you fill out a form, and you get a date for the surgery," she said. "Our surgeons are all board qualified, and they do a wonderful job. And we will fix any animal from anywhere. You don't have to be in Richland or Lexington counties."

A female dog costs $70 to be spayed and a male costs $50. Female cats are $40 and males are $20. Graham said the neutering process was less invasive than the spaying surgery so it was cheaper. They will also give the animal the required vaccines for $9 a shot, she said. If necessary a pregnancy can be terminated as well for an additional $10.

"There's just no reason not to do it," she said. "We will lend humane traps to people who have feral cats in their yards too. We just want to end the over- population so no animal has to be euthanized for lack of a home."

The Humane Society also works in conjunction with Harvest Hope to provide food for pets of people on limited incomes. Every Friday from 8:30 to 2:30 they set up a station at 2220 Shop Road to pass out pet food to people coming to Harvest Hope for groceries. The food is donated by Diamond Pet Food, and Graham said they service 3,000 clients.

"We want to keep animals in loving homes rather than having them go to shelters," she said. "Animals give us so much love. It's up to us to give them the care they need."