What visual example to describe 12,000,000 dogs and cats are euthanized each year would have a huge impact?

A visual for me would be 12,000,000 pairs of sad eyes looking at me---a collage of puppy, kitten, dog, cat, and any other animals eyes. Brown, green, yellow, blue, and the occasional one of each! Blue/brown, blue/green blue/yellow. How can you look into an animals eyes and not be touched!!?? They express sadness, lonliness, hurt, then after they're adopted it's love, happiness and contentment. I've seen first hand the eyes of a dog abused, beaten, starved and forgotten, and seen them again after she's been fed, loved and a member of the family--she's sitting by me now!!! Eyes are the window to the soul!!!!

This may be one of those cases where you will need a visual to make an impact. There is this picture that you can probably find on the Internet, of a kill-shelter at the end of the day. There are several large barrels filled with the bodies of dead dogs and cats. I saw that picture several years ago, and I have never been able to get it out of my head. If you could find and use that picture or one similar, I guarantee you, you would make an impact. I believe there is also a copy of that photo in a book. I want to say the book is called 'one life at a time, a week in an American shelter', but I'm not sure. My suggestion is to remind people that these animals aren't just some distant, remote figures. Remind them that it could be their own pets, that they all had feelings, emotions, and were simply put to death because no one wanted them. They weren't bad animals, there just aren't enough homes for every single pet born every year. Most of my pets have come from me finding them on the street or me getting them at a shelter, some of them only a day or two before they would have been put down. I can't picture what my life would be like without my animals in it, and so the thought that my babies were so close to death sickens me. You may want to play on that factor. I wish you luck on your quest for something to make an impact, and I sincerely hope this helps. :) Good luck!

An easier thing for people to relate to is how THEY impact this number: One unspayed cat and her litter could turn into FOUR HUNDRED AND TWENTY THOUSAND kittens in a seven year period. One unspayed dog and her litter could turn into SIXTY SEVEN THOUSAND DOGS in a six year year period. So simply spaying and neutering your pets can stop this from happening and hopefully bring that 12M number WAY down if there were less homeless pets.

Choose a well known state or city in the USA that has a population of approx. 12 million and ask people to imagine that town/state being wiped off the map. Then go on to point out, that is how many animals are euthanised unnecessarily each year.

Show the door of a gas chamber in a pound. Put the caption about 12,000,000 dogs and cats. Add " Do you need to see it to care?".