Almost every spay/neuter advocate I’ve met talks about how they started out doing rescue and adoptions. Most soon realize they cannot adopt their way out of the crisis of pet overpopulation. The realization that It is smarter and easier to save lives through prevention can take seven hours or days, but it can also take seven years or more. Even some municipal governments have learned to do the right thing and spend money on prevention, in order to save money on animal control, sheltering, and euthanasia.

It’s a gut-punch to many of us to realize that some of the so-called national leaders in animal welfare now advocate intact adoptions as a life-saving measure. Nothing could be further from the truth.

As a society, we have chosen to use the death penalty as birth control for cats and dogs. There are kinder solutions for birth control and spay/neuter is the best answer.

As long as shelter euthanasia remains the leading cause of death for cats and dogs in the United States, we must not tolerate shelter policies that only add to pet overpopulation. We cannot blame the public for pet homelessness if we in animal welfare are not setting the right example. 

There are low-cost spay/neuter clinics all across the country that have been established in the last 20 years to address the need for more access to affordable spay/neuter. How does anyone think it’s a good idea to put more unfixed pets out into the public? Especially when the same national organizations that now advocate for intact adoptions also now do very little to support programs that provide affordable spay/neuter.

The best way to reduce shelter euthanasia is to reduce shelter intake. The best way to reduce shelter intake is to fix pets in the homes. 

We need more spay/neuter, not less. Yes, we’ve been through a pandemic. Yes, the vet shortage is real. There are still many ways to ensure that all animals are altered prior to adoption, like asking for some reserved appointments at your service provider for adoptions or holding animals until the vet appointments so the new owner can pick them up from there. 

Prevention saves lives. Intact adoptions don’t.