(FYI, I wrote the column posted below in 2015. To read my Aug. 6, 2020 column about why I have changed my mind about ‘Clear the Shelters,’ go here.

This weekend’s “Clear the Shelters” event is one of those community efforts that sounds great. But count me as concerned that some of those cats and dogs might wind up abandoned on the streets.

Many will be scooped up by responsible and resourced owners, and those lucky ones will live good lives.

But what about all the equally well-meaning -- but less responsible and/or under-resourced -- owners? What is the fate of the animals they take home? Go to southeast Dallas or Oak Cliff and you'll get an idea:

This weekend, thanks to a national effort spearheaded by NBC-TV stations, 50-plus North Texas shelters will waive adoption fees so that everyone who has a hankering to do so can take home a “fur-ever friend.”

What’s not to love about this? Plenty. I worry that this is a late-summer version of the live chicks so many of us, when we were children, used to get as Easter gifts -- little birds dyed pink and blue that weeks later were discarded who knows where. (I believe my parents tried to sell us on some “mystery farm” as their destination.)

At the core of the abandoned and stray dog problem in Dallas -- and in many suburbs -- is the idea that dogs and cats are not always ”fur-ever friends.” They are seen as a person’s property. Can’t handle that pet? Get rid of it.

Now mix in resources -- or lack of them. Hey, you can get a dog virtually for free -- no adoption fee. If a person can’t afford the adoption fee, I worry that he or she won’t be able to afford a) the things the law says a pet owner must provide and b) the many additional things that need to be done for a pet to be healthy and the surrounding neighborhood to be safe.

You have to budget for a pet -- you have to figure out how to make the monthly expenses fit into your household income -- just as you would for a new car or groceries.

The law requires -- in addition to most cities mandating a registration fee -- proper food, a rabies vaccination, a collar and ID tags, shelter, fail-safe fencing.

Then there's the stuff the law doesn't require -- but that humane treatment would: What happens when your dog or cat gets fleas? What about heartworm? What about vaccines for parvo or distemper?

I'm sure the participating shelters will have these conversation -- and talk about training, about coaching, about expenses. But do they adequately convey what folks are getting into?

Here's how the story too often goes: That cute dog poops on the floor. Repeatedly. She isn't housebroken. And she chews on things. So soon she gets chunked into the back yard. It's too hot to play with her. The kids go back to school. She's bored and lonely. She's on her way to being a neglected dog. So she digs out. Now she's a loose dog.Heaven forbid she might have parvo or distemper and infect areas where other folks are walking their dogs. Or she starts chasing cars and people. Running with other dogs. This doesn't end well. Sure, she's an "owned" dog, but she's so astray that she might as well be classified as abandoned.

Many will say, but if that sweet cat or dog doesn't get adopted, it may end up euthanized at the shelter. That's true. But better to be humanely euthanized than to end up run over on the street, rotting with disease or dumped in the woods to fend for itself.

Finally, a personal word about expenses:

It only takes a casual look at the photo at the top of this post to see that, indeed, pets are part of the family at my house.

Chances are that you are more the kind of pet owner that I am -- not one who would dream of kicking out or takes back a pet once it gets sick or can't acclimate. But consider this. One of my adopted cats, pictured above, has been fit as a fiddle since she was adopted from DAS in February; the other one, adopted through another local shelter in May, exhibited a horrific case of diarrhea as soon as I brought her home. It took two months of vet visits to cure her of a giardia-related bug.

The cat you don't see pictured is sweet Grace, adopted from a no-kill shelter a year ago and who developed FIP, feline infectious peritonitis, in January and died.

My vet bill over the last year has been well into the thousands. I've had to take money out of savings to cover those bills. Others might have to charge up their credit cards.

Young, seemingly healthy cats that proved to be expensive. Those are the kinds of things you have to think about before you adopt. Not warm and fuzzy. But real stuff.

Before we get so excited about emptying the shelters, I suggest we make sure that real stuff is getting conveyed to would-be owners. And make sure we are emptying those shelters to people who will be responsible owners and responsible neighbors, people who will look out for both their new pet and the safety of their community.