Clear out the Shelters – How to Make it Happen

In late March I saw several posts by large organizations in Massachusetts sharing the fact that they didn’t have any dogs  available for adoption (T.J. O’Connor Animal Control) and only three cats (MSPCA Boston). This is so incredibly amazing … I really didn’t think we would see something like this happening!

Here is the MSPCA’s Facebook post:

Here is the post from T.J. O’Connor in Springfield:

What is happening in Massachusetts that is different than other area? It’s simple: incredibly aggressive spay/neuter programs for owned cats and dogs. Many people would think that TNR is the reason for our great success, but in Massachusetts we had pretty aggressive TNR happening in the ’90s and early 2000s and we still weren’t making a difference with adult cat populations in our shelters. Some people might say we have adopted our way out of the overpopulation problem through fee-waived adoption events (which are really no longer happening at large organizations because they have so few cats). This isn’t the case.

What we really needed to attack all along was the fact that many people with very limited income owned a lot of cats and needed spay/neuter assistance. Once the leading animal welfare organizations in the state truly understood and embraced the fact that we needed to help make spaying or neutering and vaccinating a dog or cat affordable to folks at all income levels, then we were on the path to success.

It sounds like a simple idea and it is. In Massachusetts there have been areas where low-cost spay/neuter was offered in areas where there was very little TNR being done. Significant decreases in intake numbers still happened in those areas, despite the fact that no organized TNR was happening. In areas where TNR and low-cost owned spay/neuter was happening at the same time, the decrease was also there. It was a bit larger —but not much larger, when you consider all of the effort that goes into TNR.

So why can’t this happen elsewhere?

I know there are pockets of the country that have sections of states that have had great success with low-cost/free spay/neuter programs. But those areas don’t yet seem to be able to reach out and cover all parts of a state. States that have spay/neuter programs the cover the entirestate to stand to be able to make the greatest impact. So here is my “shout out” to Peter Marsh and his work in the ’90s, leading the way for municipalities to understand the need for affordable spay/neuter for all. Peter was the first person that I heard reference the idea that cats were “pets of the poor.”  This is when the light bulb went off for me that we need difference services and programs for these cats.

So in order to clear out the shelters, we need to continue to focus our efforts on providing affordable or free spay/neuter services to ALL the cats in our community — free-roaming and especially owned cats. EVERY organization must offer low-cost/free spay/neuter for cats in communities with large cat populations. If you don’t have these kinds of programs, you are simply not going to make an impact on the numbers of cats coming into your facility.