Michigan Coalition For Statewide Spay & Neuter follows the Proactive Animal Sheltering (PAS) common sense approach to sheltering. PAS is data driven and focuses on spay & neuter to humanely reduce dog and cat homelessness and intake. The focus must be on all three: owned pets, community cats and shelter/rescue animals.
What does it mean when animal shelters limit cat intake? When a shelter limits cat intake, it distorts the ability to see what the environment is that the shelter operates in and how well the shelter is meeting needs of homeless animals. We believe that to be a true no-kill shelter, you must have open admission. It is the only way to see what is really happening in any community or shelter. Limiting cat intake gives a misleading look at shelter intake and does not reflect a true picture of the community’s real dog and cat issues. When fewer cats enter a shelter than dogs, people think there is no cat issue in the community. Everyone has a homeless cat issue at this point. It is just a matter of transparency.
The focus of many shelters for years was on dogs. Cats were ignored. As a result, today we have homeless cats everywhere. When people are tired of their cat, they open the door and let it go. Most are not fixed, which quickly leads to unending reproduction. When shelters limit cat intake, the same thing happens.
For decades, animal sheltering has not made cats an equal focus as dogs. Therefore, it is rather easy to know if a shelter is limiting cat intake. Since cats now easily outnumber dogs, shelter intake should reflect that in intake numbers. Open admission reflects at least an equal intake percentage (50% dogs/ 50% cats). If the intake of dogs is higher than cats, cat intake is being limited. Some shelters simply don’t take cats or have a set number they will house. Some shelters have waiting lists and limited hours for cat intake. Also, cats have fewer positive outcome options in shelters than dogs. Limiting cat intake can give shelter’s a higher Live Release Rate.
There are many ways to limit cat intake but the result is the same: more unfixed cats abandoned to the streets. And that leads to more and more unfixed homeless cats on the streets.
In Michigan (from Michigan Department of Agriculture & Rural Development (MDARD)), for years 2017 – 2019, the percentage of shelters limiting cat intake was 30%, 31% and 32% respectively. In 2020, it rose to 45% of reporting shelters. To understand this better, the actual number of shelters limiting intake was 43, 50 and 54 respectively for years 2017 – 2019. 2020 saw 70 shelters limit cat intake.
What happens to these cats? They are too often abandoned to the streets. And too often, they are not fixed, which produces more and more unfixed cats. This is why it is vital to include community cats (unowned cats on the streets) in sheltering. A community cat does not belong in a shelter but this cat needs to be fixed. Trap-Neuter-Vaccinate-Return (TNVR) provides for spay/neuter, rabies shot and most often a caretaker who manages the colony of these cats – providing food, housing, medical care, etc.
It takes a community but until dogs and cats are addressed equally in our shelters, the homeless cat issue will only increase.