Even if you’re not a fan of animals, it’s hard to miss the fact that Dallas (and Texas in general) has a major animal problem.
From Dallas Animal Services to Fort Worth Animal Care and Control to the Young County Humane Society in Graham, Texas, the Greenville Animal Shelter in East Texas, and the BARC Animal Shelter in Houston, animal shelters in big cities and small cities are all overcrowded and facing daily calls from residents for pets to be fostered or adopted.
And hundreds of unwanted animals are still euthanized every day.
One animal rights activist on the front lines has seen this first-hand: Stephanie M. Casey, a volunteer, foster parent, and member of the Dallas Animal Advisory Board, founded Dallas Love Bugs, a platform for sharing shelter animals looking for homes. Casey analyzes the situation and offers suggestions for how to get out of it.
She kindly gave us permission to reprint it here:
We are in danger of dog overpopulation.
We are facing a dog overpopulation crisis across the American South, across the country, and across the world, and our only way out of this crisis is through adoption, rescue, and adoption, yet these three areas are where nearly all of the resources (billions of dollars, many people, and countless hours) are being focused on responding to the dog overpopulation crisis.
About one million dogs and cats are euthanized each year in the United States. The reason is dog overpopulation, which is caused by dog breeding, or reproduction, and dog reproductive issues are not being addressed in a focused and comprehensive way.
The fundamental problem behind dog overpopulation and the resulting euthanasia is breeding, but this area has not been significantly addressed with a comprehensive, long-term strategy. We put billions of dollars into the backstop every year, but unless we add or shift our efforts and resources to the root of the problem, we have no hope of quelling or ending the overpopulation crisis.
There are widespread efforts to shut down puppy mills, groups working to enact (often unenforced) breeding laws, sporadic spay-neuter efforts, and many rescue groups handing over the last remaining dogs to new homes, one by one.
Dog overpopulation
Dog overpopulation is when there are more dogs than there are homes interested in caring for them throughout their lives.
How can we reduce the number of unwanted dogs? There is only one answer: reduce breeding, whether that be breeding to sell or because owners don’t spay/neuter their pets.
To control dog breeding, you need to:
- Make spay/neuter easy, abundant, and free
- Making it harder to breed by charging high fees for breeding licenses, requiring annual paperwork and conducting welfare checks
- Support the enforcement of spay/neuter and neuter laws.
- Educate the community about the issue
- Changing public perception so that reproduction is seen as “irresponsible”
Why aren’t established, well-funded organisations addressing the underlying problem of dog breeding?
Several organizations offer spay/neuter services, and many shelters, including Dallas Animal Services, will spay/neuter pets before they are available for adoption.
But sometimes fixing the symptoms — in this case, helping one at-risk dog at a time — is easier than proactively solving the problem. Individual animals suffering dire circumstances seem to attract attention and donations. This may partially explain why larger organizations focus on the last step: helping one dog at a time.
Of course, these animals need our help, but that won’t solve the problem.
Current resource allocation in animal advocacy and welfare
An analysis of national and regionally well-funded animal welfare organizations reveals that nearly $1 billion (see below) is concentrated almost entirely at the margins. In other words, funding meant to help homeless animals is concentrated almost entirely at the margins.
To get to the core issue of reproduction, we need to:
- Specialized departments established within large, well-funded organizations
- New, specialized organizations
- Government Departments/Task Forces
A multi-pronged campaign must be waged until the data and scenario changes permanently and the number of dogs needing rehoming becomes a manageable number (compared to the current amount of daily urgency and exhausting challenges) and healthy, adoptable dogs no longer need to be euthanized.
To give you an idea of what funds are being spent on animal issues in North Texas and the surrounding areas, the list below provides an overview of some of the leading organizations in the rescue and welfare field and their total budgets for 2022. All of these organizations address animal issues in DFW and Texas, but none of them are focused on curbing dog overpopulation.
The Dallas group alone has spent about $50 million trying to solve the “animal problem” caused by uncontrolled breeding (and that doesn’t include the costs of the dozens of individual rescue groups that operate on a smaller scale).
The list is as follows:
American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA): $340 million
The ASPCA focuses on cruelty to all animals. They actively respond to natural disasters that put animals at risk and they work to educate veterinarians and other animal care professionals. The ASPCA recognizes that stray dog populations grow unchecked in areas where affordable spay/neuter services are not readily available, but they have no plan or program to solve this problem.
Best Friends Animal Society (BFAS): $221 million
Best Friends Animal Society began as The Process Church of the Final Judgment (also known as The Process) and already had non-profit status, but in 1991, its founders changed its focus and name to Best Friends Animal Society. Today, BFAS’s main goal is to make the United States “zero kill” by 2025. BFAS is also involved in advocacy and legislative efforts, including puppy mills, feral cats, and breed-specific legislation. It operates three brick-and-mortar shelters, including one in Utah.
Humane Society of the United States (HSUS): $174 million
Founded in 1954, its mission is to prevent animal cruelty in laboratories, slaughterhouses, and puppy mills. HSUS has a strong legislative presence passing laws to prevent cruelty to all animals. HSUS also operates Black Beauty Ranch, a large shelter in Texas that houses rescued farm and exotic animals. 1% of its budget goes to supporting local shelters.
Texas Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCATX): $24,000,000
The SPCA is based in Dallas and operates two shelter/adoption centers, three spay/neuter clinics and an emergency animal rescue center. It also maintains an Animal Cruelty Investigation Unit with three full-time humane investigators.
Houston Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (HSPCA): $16 million
The HSPCA operates a shelter/adoption center (including an equine center), a health clinic, a teaching hospital for Texas A&M veterinary students, and an emergency animal rescue facility.
Austin Pets Alive (APA): $17 million
APA operates the shelter and serves as a support system for Austin city-run shelter AAC (Austin Animal Control), adopting out at least 12% of its annual intakes and helping AAC meet zero-kill standards (90% live release rate) since 2015. The new APA Animal Hospital is scheduled to open in July 2024.
Dallas Pets Alive (DPA): $750,000
DPA is a non-brick and mortar rescue organization that partners with DAS and accepts dogs through the foster care system. DPA focuses on rescuing healthy, treatable pets that are at highest risk of euthanasia. DPA recently acquired Dogs Matter, another non-profit that helps people going through drug and alcohol rehabilitation treatment by finding them foster homes while their humans are in treatment.
Operation Kindness (OPK): $8 million
OPK is one of the few Dallas rescue groups that also operates a shelter. OPK is currently the largest donor group for Dallas Animal Services and removes the most dogs and cats from DAS into their foster and adoption programs.
Dallas Animal Services (DAS): $16,000,000
Dallas Animal Services is a municipal shelter for the city of Dallas whose mission is to care for stray and abandoned animals.
BARC Animal Shelter and Adoption: $14,000,000
BARC is Houston’s municipal animal shelter, tasked with caring for stray and abandoned animals.
P.S.: Cats need humans too, but dogs are more socially dangerous and need humans a bit more to survive. Finding a solution to the dog overpopulation problem will hopefully be a model for solving the cat overpopulation problem as well.
