Macon County animal shelters try their best to find a safe home for every animal they take in, but sometimes, those homes aren’t in Macon County. Sometimes a dog or cat makes it all the way up the east coast before they find their forever home. Animal transport to distant agencies is essential to the adoption process in Macon County, but is there a way to keep those animals – and quite a bit of money – in the county?
Appalachian Animal Rescue Center sends hundreds of dogs to New Jersey every year. The or-ganization they partner with is in a community with much greater demand for animal adoptions, so they’re able to move animals faster and free up more space in both shelters for other animals in need. AARC president Cathy Howman said dogs go so much faster in New Jersey that they may never have to spend a night in the shelter.
“Usually, we send them pictures of a dog, we send the animals up there and by the time they arrive, there’s already someone waiting to adopt them,” she said.
As to why the demand is so much greater up north, it usually comes down to spay and neuter laws. Communities with robust policies requiring pets to be fixed see far fewer unplanned pet pregnancies, meaning far fewer unwanted animals going to shelters. That means that areas like Macon County that don’t require pets to be spayed or neutered have an overabundance of cats and dogs that they practically have to give away, while in communities that have those laws, adoption fees can climb into the triple digits without shelters having to worry about a lack of space.
“They’re making a lot of money with these animals, yet we’re paying for them to take them,” said Carean Kaso, a local animal rights activist and AARC volunteer.
AARC doesn’t have much choice on the matter – if there’s not enough room for all of the unadopted animals that end up under their care, something’s got to give. AARC is a no-kill shelter, but that’s not a universal policy. According to the 2020 Public Animal Shelter Report, North Carolina public animal shelters euthanized approximately 10,522 dogs and 25,254 cats in 2020, all because there are too many animals and not enough people to take care of them.
“There just simply are not enough responsible adopters to offset the amount of animals in need, especially in the south,” said Pat Thomas, the founder of Advocates for Animals of WNC. “Transports are very labor-intensive, and many volunteers are needed to make it work… it can be costly to the sending organization.”
Natasha Kush, who runs the Shelter Dog Transport Alliance, says that transports are an important solution for getting animals into homes and that most receiving organizations don’t “cherry-pick” the most adoptable animals, but rather take in a crop of animals that reflects what you’d see at any shelter. However, she also feels that population control is necessary to keep the problem besieging rural communities from getting any worse. The more accessible and affordable spay and neuter services are, the better.
“The answer to pet overpopulation is simply population control,” Kush said. “It’s not really about legislation, rather it’s more about making [spay and neuter] services affordable and accessible. For the most part, folks don’t want a lot of mouths to feed or extra dogs around, but if they don’t have an affordable or accessible option, then that’s just what happens. This is especially prominent in rural counties.”
Howman will take it a step further – she wants spay and neuter laws on the books. This wouldn’t require a blanket mandate, as some communities just use pet licenses so that the minority of pet owners who want to breed their animals can still do so for a fee. Whatever strategy it takes, maximizing local spaying and neutering would save resources for Macon County animal shelters and save a lot of animals’ lives.
“I’ve been on the board for 20 years and I’ve always wanted to see it happen,” Howman said of spay and neuter laws. “It would help us immensely.”