This Country Does a Lot For Dogs (Including Tax Breaks for Adopting)

Following an exhaustive sterilization program, the Netherlands becomes the first country ever to eradicate dog homelessness.

To achieve their goal, Dutch authorities sterilized all stray dogs, encouraged adoption through tax break, and strove to make owners aware of their responsibilities by backing animal abuse with 3-year prison sentences and fines of 16,000 euros.

About one in five people in the Netherlands owns a dog. Since the Animal Welfare Act passed in the 1960s, more than a million dogs were taken off the streets, without euthanizing a single one.