Recipe for Ending Pet Overpopulation:
1. Always spay/neuter your pet before he or she is old enough to reproduce. 
2. Never abandon your pet — ever.
3. Adopt from a shelter or rescue group.
4. Boycott pet shops, puppy/kitty mills and breeders.
5. If you have an outdoor cat colony, practice
trap-neuter-release-maintain.

Every year in the US, approximately 20 million dogs and cats are killed in animal shelters while probably about a billion die on the streets. Pet overpopulation is the result of two HUMAN behaviors: allowing pets to breed and abandoning pets.

Compassionate human beings have struggled with the stray cats/dogs issue and wonder how they can help stop pet overpopulation.The solution — sterilization prior to maturity (coupled with responsible care) — has been available for more than 75 years but public awareness and funding for low-cost spay/neuter programs has been minimal.

Now The Tide Is Turning...
Communities are banding together across the nation to fight pet overpopulation. Many cities have regulations requiring shelter pets be spay/neutered before being adopted.  Many shelters have their own spay/neuter programs that extend to kittens and puppies as well as adult pets. More than 50% of the states have a low-cost spay/neuter program.  Rhode Island is the first state in the nation to enact a law requiring spay/neuter for all cats coupled with a strict breeder permit system cats. For more details, go to Rhode Island General Assembly press release.

It’s time for your municipality to step up to the plate. Contact your city, township or borough and ask them what your community is doing to make spay/neuter more affordable for pet guardians.

A Successful Spay/Neuter
Community Initiative
Donna Munizza Shields, Susan Zimmerman and Donald Shields, VMD, have created an innovative solution to the shortage of spay/neuter options for homeless cats in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Their Feral and Stray Cat Spay/Neuter Clinic is located in a low-cost rented trailer on the grounds of the National Greyhound Adoption Program. As of July, 2006, 500 stray and feral cats have been:

  • spay/neutered
  • vaccinated
  • treated for diseases and other ailments
  • and been ear-tipped so they can be identified in the future for a cost of $20 per cat.

An army of compassionate volunteers donate their time and talent. Many friendly cats and kittens have found new loving homes through the program.

The remaining feral cats — who are very shy and frightened of humans — are returned to their colonies with caregivers who are trained to provide food, shelter, medication, re-trapping for additional veterinary care if needed, etc. These cats can live reasonably long and happy lives in their home colonies with their feline friends and human caregivers.

The Feral and Stray Cat Spay/Neuter Clinic is an outstanding example of a private community effort that saves hundreds of unwanted animals while improving the quality of their lives and effectively addressing the pet overpopulation problem.

The City of Philadelphia provides no municipal funds for the Feral and Stray Cat Spay/Neuter Clinic. The clinic depends on individuals and foundations for support. A tax deductible donation to NOA will helpt the Feral and Stray Cat Spay/Neuter Clinic. Donations are needed for operating expenses, veterinary supplies and a future new — permanent — home.  At the request of the donor, “Bricks and Mortar” donations will be publicly acknowledged.  The reception area, surgical suite, recovery area and volunteer room will be “named in honor or memory of” major donors.  Other acknowledgment opportunities will also be available.

Contact NOA at 1-866-6ANIMAL (1-866-626-4625) or email if you would like to sponsor this extraordinary program.