This morning the Miami Herald published an editorial exhorting local activists to “put down their signs” and unite to help the new shelter director do a better job for the animals of Miami-Dade.
Specifically, it urged them to abandon their current form of activism — organized protest — and instead work to implement and support spay/neuter programs, calling them “the only proven method to bring down the shelter population.”
To paraphrase Senator Daniel Moynihan, the Miami Herald, like all of us, is entitled to its own opinions — but not its own facts.
Spay/neuter programs, while essential, are not the “only proven method” of reducing shelter population.
Innovative return to owner programs — like those in Reno, Nev., and Calgary, Alberta — have been proven to bring down shelter population.
Foster care programs have been proven to bring down shelter population.
Aggressive, creative adoption programs have been proven to bring down shelter population.
Owner retention programs — support and assistance to pet-owners who are struggling to keep, feed or get vet care for their pets — have been proven to bring down shelter population.
Great community relations so you can have lots of rescue groups, volunteers, supporters and donors to help get pets rehabbed, treated and adopted have been proven to bring down shelter population.
Bringing in great people who know how to get community and local government support has been proven to bring down shelter population.
A good relationship with the media, in order to get the word out to the community about adoptions as well as spay/neuter and owner retention support, has been proven to bring down shelter population.
Putting the entire burden of improving shelter intake and shelter numbers on spay/neuter just creates a sense of helplessness in everyone currently working to save animals, from the local government to the shelter director to the local media to the volunteers, staff and rescue groups all the way out to the entire community.
That’s because spay/neuter is always “someday.” It does nothing to save the lives of animals already born, nor those in the shelter right now. This means people put all their effort and energy into something without any immediate reduction in the suffering and death of their community’s animals. It’s demoralizing.
All those other proven programs, on the other hand, create excitement. They give people a sense of purpose. They create immediate gratification, thus rewarding volunteers, activists, employees, fosterers and rescuers for their efforts — which typically causes people to try even harder.
The animals those programs save are also pretty glad about it.
It’s possible, Miami Herald, to ask your community to come together and get a job done without asserting as a proven truth something that isn’t so, and asking them to embrace a paradigm that is both ineffective and demoralizing.
By all means, beg them to keep your community’s low-cost spay/neuter program in place. But to say that’s the whole game? You are doing your community, its animals and the shelter staff and director a huge, huge disservice.
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