The Shelter Problem

Anxious whines and barks greet me as I pace slowly down the hallway. Every face that looks up at me through thin bars is begging for me to give it attention, if only for a few minutes. One girl strikes me, as she’s huddled near the back of her cage, with her tail almost tucked between her legs, but trying to wag. She’s not sure if she should fear me or not. I unlock her cage and sit on the floor inside, closing the door behind me. This sweet dog approaches me slowly, not sure of my intentions, but hoping she can trust me. Eventually she allows me to put my leash on her and get her outside. Once there she is carefree and happy, running and playing, fetching a tennis ball for me. Unfortunately, she has to be returned to her cage in just a few minutes so I can attempt to coax another scared dog out of his.

I come back a week later. She is still there, cowering in the corner, not knowing who to trust.

I volunteer at the Santa Cruz County Animal Shelter. I love being a volunteer, because I know that the animals that are in the shelter are stressed, afraid, and even depressed because they have to sit in a cage all day surrounded by other stressed dogs. As a volunteer, I get to take them out of their cages and let them play. Even with all of the good intentions of the volunteers like me, we can’t make these animals as happy as they would be at a responsible, loving owner’s home.

It’d be nice to live in a world where we didn’t have to worry about spaying or neutering our animals. But the reality is that many animals end up reproducing when the owner wasn’t prepared, and these animals, like the precious dog mentioned above, end up in shelters. According to the ASPCA, around 8 million animals enter shelters each year, and of those animals, about 2.7 million are euthanized. Spaying or neutering your animal will reduce the high number of animals that end up in shelters, and that end up being euthanized, by reducing unwanted births.

Many worry that fixing their animals will hurt them, change their personality, emasculate them (if they’re male), or just consider it mutilation. Here are the facts. While it is a surgical procedure, it only takes between 24 and 48 hours for a pet to recover. Many do not see a change in their pet’s personality, except that they become calmer. As for male pets feeling emasculated, masculinity is a human concept, and animals don’t have a sexual identity as we do. PetSmart Charities reports that many haven’t spayed or neutered their pet because they believe they were too young. Your pet can reproduce before they are 6 months old, so fixing them when they are young is necessary. The Association of Shelter Veterinarians says that your pet can be fixed between 8 and 10 weeks old, and this will reduce the risk of your pets reproducing before you even think they can. While some consider fixing their animals to be mutilation, it is important to weigh the consequences of a small surgery against more animals suffering in shelters, where many don’t get out alive.

Still not convinced? In Santa Cruz County it is the law that you have your pet spayed or neutered before they are six months old. Since this law passed, the animal shelter found that they no longer need to euthanize animals for space.

The greatest thing to any of us who volunteer at the Santa Cruz County Animal Shelter, or any shelter for that matter, would be to see it empty. You can do your part to help reduce the number of animals in the shelter by fixing them, and encouraging friends and family with pets to do the same, even those that live outside of Santa Cruz County. In this way, we can move towards a country where no shelter has to euthanize animals because there simply aren’t enough cages to keep them.

Photo via Shutterstock