Animal Welfare Professionals

Hi Jessica,

Would love to connect with you and the work your foundation is doing.  Sounds amazing!  Our organization is also focused on prevention and the human side of animal welfare.  Our mission is Helping Pets by Helping People.  We are a fairly new organization but based on models of other successful prevention first organizations.  Is there a possibility of connecting to learn and chat more?

Thanks!

Eva Perrigo, CTC, CSAT

SAFE Pet Partners

www.safepetpartners.org

safepetpartners@gmail.com

Unfortunately, what we most see in animal welfare, particularly from our community leaders is reaction instead of being proactive. Like I told someone on FB, all of this could have been avoided with a strong, free, community targeted spay and neuter program. I fail to understand why it is so difficult for those in government to understand that prevention is better than reaction every time.

Adriana,

Your line about government reaction versus proactive prevention is the entire thesis. Most people inside Animal Care and Control would not say it out loud. You did. Thank you.

Free, community-targeted spay and neuter is exactly the lever. AAF runs ours as SNIP. Free access through partner clinics, plus $100 recovery support for households enrolled in qualifying government assistance programs (Medicaid, SNAP, WIC, Disability VA, SSDI, SSI). The service itself is open to anyone. The recovery support is targeted to households for whom post-surgery costs would otherwise be the barrier. We pulled the design from the gun buyback model: no shame, no gatekeeping, just remove barriers.

Every SNIP surgery prevents an average of 4.5 future shelter intakes over a lifetime. $1 million invested in upstream SNIP work prevents 22,500 intakes, saves $20.25 million in taxpayer costs, and avoids 350,000 shelter days. That math is verifiable in AAF's Sponsor Impact Calculator at calc.animal-angelsfoundation.org if you want to run your county's numbers.

The reason government has trouble understanding it is partly that the math rarely gets put in front of them in budget-conversation language. When it is, the conversation shifts fast. We are working with county commissioners across our seven-county service area in Central Alabama to put exactly those numbers in front of them.

I would love to compare notes. If your team has bandwidth for a 30-minute Zoom, my Calendly is calendly.com/animal-angels. I would also love to use your line about prevention versus reaction in upcoming Substack posts, the next edition of The Shift to Prevention, and grant applications, with attribution to you and Palm Beach County Animal Care and Control. Your voice from inside ACC carries weight a nonprofit voice cannot. Let me know if that works for you.

Unfortunately, what we most see in animal welfare, particularly from our community leaders is reaction instead of being proactive. Like I told someone on FB, all of this could have been avoided with a strong, free, community targeted spay and neuter program. I fail to understand why it is so difficult for those in government to understand that prevention is better than reaction every time.

Hi Dear BJ,

I just looked at your website. What an absolutely wonderful program you are doing for the communities in Alabama!   Surrender Diversions/Intake Prevention is dreadfully needed by every shelter. I used to be involved in doing it, when my local shelter had only around 20 % intakes that exited.

Hi Jody,

Thank you for reading and for the kind words. Means a lot coming from someone who's done this work hands-on.

The 20% exit rate detail caught me. That's a brutal place to do animal welfare. The fact that you stayed in the field after seeing what intake-prevention can do tells me you're working from a different place than most of the sector. The folks who saw those numbers and either burned out or accepted them as normal are the majority. The ones who stayed and tried to change the equation are the minority the field needs more of.

I'd love to hear more about Dove Road and the work you're doing now. The sanctuary and safe haven framing reads like you're working a different lane than most shelters.

My calendar is open if you'd ever like to talk: https://calendly.com/animal-angels

Best, BJ

Hi Dear BJ,

I just looked at your website. What an absolutely wonderful program you are doing for the communities in Alabama!   Surrender Diversions/Intake Prevention is dreadfully needed by every shelter. I used to be involved in doing it, when my local shelter had only around 20 % intakes that exited.

Karen, the history you laid out is real and worth respecting. Spay/neuter is the biggest prevention win the field has ever produced. From 17 million dying in shelters in the 1980s to under 500,000 today, that is decades of work and it is the playbook everyone points to.

Here is where I want to push back. Spay/neuter is at an all-time high and we still saw 5.8 million community intakes in 2025 (Shelter Animals Count 2025 Annual Report). So spay/neuter cannot be the only lever, and the story that the field figured out prevention and then got crushed by COVID does not quite match the math. We solved the supply-side problem. Fewer unwanted litters. We have never solved the demand-side problem.

The demand side is the surrender drivers. Housing. Vet costs. Behavior. Financial crisis. Landlord restrictions. A neutered dog still gets surrendered when the family moves and cannot find a pet-inclusive lease. A spayed cat still gets surrendered when the owner cannot afford the dental. That is where the 5.8 million is coming from, and that is the layer the field has never built at scale.

COVID did not break prevention. It exposed how much of it was never built. The retention and access-to-care programs you named came late, ran small, never had the cultural and funding muscle that spay/neuter had, and got cut first when capacity tightened. Those are the programs that have to come back, scaled up, networked across orgs, with infrastructure that does not collapse when one shelter has a bad quarter.

That is the gap AAF is trying to fill. A shared network layer underneath shelters, rescues, clinics, trainers, landlords, and community orgs so the same case gets seen once and worked once. The Bridge handles the demand-side crisis (food, vet, housing, fostering). Pet Help Desk triages before surrender. The AWRN routes families to the right partner in real time. Denise Deisler at Jacksonville documented 33 to 50 percent intake reductions through diversion and retention done at this level. Fort Wayne hit 31 percent through a municipal department. The math says the demand side is solvable if the network does the lifting.

You named the exact gap our model is built for. Helping orgs move from "that sounds great but I cannot even think about it" to "I think we could actually make that work." We are not a shelter or a clinic. We are prevention infrastructure that strengthens both.

You told me last week if there was a crusade, you would join. There is one, and the offer means more than you know.

BJ

Calendly: calendly.com/animal-angels

Hi BJ,

When it comes to the scale of these programs - now and in the past - I think this is just something we see differently, and I think that's okay. I've long believed that there are important roles for advocates and organizations with a wide variety of views and roles. 

I remain interested in being part of an effort to expand and standardize surrender data collection by shelter software companies. It would be incredibly useful to have the improved detail and accuracy at a mass scale. If that's something you decide to pursue, or hear that someone else is, please let me know! 

Thank you,

Karen

Karen, the history you laid out is real and worth respecting. Spay/neuter is the biggest prevention win the field has ever produced. From 17 million dying in shelters in the 1980s to under 500,000 today, that is decades of work and it is the playbook everyone points to.

Here is where I want to push back. Spay/neuter is at an all-time high and we still saw 5.8 million community intakes in 2025 (Shelter Animals Count 2025 Annual Report). So spay/neuter cannot be the only lever, and the story that the field figured out prevention and then got crushed by COVID does not quite match the math. We solved the supply-side problem. Fewer unwanted litters. We have never solved the demand-side problem.

The demand side is the surrender drivers. Housing. Vet costs. Behavior. Financial crisis. Landlord restrictions. A neutered dog still gets surrendered when the family moves and cannot find a pet-inclusive lease. A spayed cat still gets surrendered when the owner cannot afford the dental. That is where the 5.8 million is coming from, and that is the layer the field has never built at scale.

COVID did not break prevention. It exposed how much of it was never built. The retention and access-to-care programs you named came late, ran small, never had the cultural and funding muscle that spay/neuter had, and got cut first when capacity tightened. Those are the programs that have to come back, scaled up, networked across orgs, with infrastructure that does not collapse when one shelter has a bad quarter.

That is the gap AAF is trying to fill. A shared network layer underneath shelters, rescues, clinics, trainers, landlords, and community orgs so the same case gets seen once and worked once. The Bridge handles the demand-side crisis (food, vet, housing, fostering). Pet Help Desk triages before surrender. The AWRN routes families to the right partner in real time. Denise Deisler at Jacksonville documented 33 to 50 percent intake reductions through diversion and retention done at this level. Fort Wayne hit 31 percent through a municipal department. The math says the demand side is solvable if the network does the lifting.

You named the exact gap our model is built for. Helping orgs move from "that sounds great but I cannot even think about it" to "I think we could actually make that work." We are not a shelter or a clinic. We are prevention infrastructure that strengthens both.

You told me last week if there was a crusade, you would join. There is one, and the offer means more than you know.

BJ

Calendly: calendly.com/animal-angels

Hi BJ,

After reading all the responses, I wanted to respond, especially after really thinking about Karen's response. I'm currently speaking from someone working directly on the veterinary side in a HVHQ S/N clinic.  I'm old enough to have started in rescue as a determined preteen in the early eighties,  and can now look back over decades. Absolutely we have done amazing things bringing those numbers down.  It don't think anyone involved back then can forget how awful it was, or the impact of pediatric spay and neuter.

I think part of what is going on is that there are several very fractured messages going on around spay/neuter and rescue, and that it gets very confused by social media.  I don't think pediatric or early s/n is a very clear message, I think people only or mostly think of it in terms of animals that you adopt from a shelter. And that's pretty much true. As far as I'm aware, general practice/regular vets are not doing them -they are doing them earliest around six months, or with larger breeds, even much later, 18-24 months due to "evidence" around orthopedic development particularly in larger breed dogs (though the AVMA says when to alter dogs is based on the individual dog, and does not address the debate around potential joint issues, etc, presumably because the evidence doesn't warrant it.  Whether that's true or not -it's a debate out there on social media, with shelters being criticized for it).  For cats, it's have it done by 5 mths.

Pediatric s/n are more difficult, and it's not part of standard vet training as far as I know -I'm not aware of regular vets offering and doing the very early pediatric spays and neuters in their own practices that we are doing in high volume clinics, unless its a specific exception or event.  It's not offered or part of the conversation, it is getting them done by around 5-6 months.  It's not really something that's coming up out of non-shelter settings.  

Given that early pediatric s/n isn't a conversation or recommendation being had outside of shelter and rescue context, I'm not sure the level of awareness about it, which makes it a separate conversation, not general knowledge. I think the message of spay/neuter is very much out there, but not really about when and how early.  And early is only a shelter thing anyway.  So if you are not getting your pet from a shelter, you might not be aware it's even a thing.  Which then also makes it the perfect subject for all kinds of social media debate headaches where terrible and utterly misinformed things get said and spread.  There isn't a consistent message, as there is with vaccinations.  It's generally accepted or at least understood that all puppies and kittens need "baby shots" on a certain schedule. But its not so clear and simple with spaying and neutering -the when part.

When I talk to overwhelmed people who didn't get their pregnant cat in for a spay in time, and desperately want to spay her, and even have some homes lined up, they often do not realize that the kittens could be fixed before they go to their new homes, right along with mom when she gets done. Certainly timing and finances would play a part -having everything line up with financial help and our surgery waitlist would take some extra time and help, but would be a huge win on the prevention side -if those kittens could somehow come into the clinic WITH mom, from a private owner and not a rescue, as it typically happens at our clinic, they could go to homes sterilized without going through a shelter or rescue.  I am not sure how much more risk there might be to kittens that age going home to a private owner instead of a rescue, but it seems managable with guidelines and support. Trying to catch those situations, where a privately owned mom gets spayed, but her kittens are given away unspayed - would be a big prevention imo.  My sense is people would do this if they fully knew it was an option and had some help with cost and scheduling and some positive support and encouragement.

As for dogs, particularly large dogs, there are owners who would not even consider neutering a male puppy, and have no plans to, until that puppy is a big dog they are having problems with. We get this scenario, and all I can think is how much happier everyone would be, had that dog been neutered as a pediatric puppy.  Instead of waiting for... them to be a big giant out of control intact male they didn't anticipate.  These owners are often just exhausted, and hoping that it is not too late for neutering to turn the tide.  If pediatric spaying and neutering were somehow part of the conversation as an option outside of the shelter/rescue realm, maybe it would happen more?  Should it happen more outside of HVHQ clinics through shelters and rescues? Maybe gradually happen more with regular vets?  Be seen more on a continuum to be considered for all pets, rather than only shelter puppies and kittens?  I think an obstacle to this is the uncertainty around potential orthopedic issues if s/n too early, though there is not a consensus statement about that I'm aware of, it's definitely a concern. For shelter dogs, I think people accept the risk, but not so much owned dogs. The Association of Shelter Veterinarians has I think a pretty conservative statement about this similar to the AVMA, except that it does address the matter of potential orthopedic issues and any evidence very qualified and is not conclusive, but they at least acknowledge it as a concern.

I had trouble trying to pull so many thoughts together and be articulate about this.  Many times I kept going back and questioning my assumptions and double checking what the current consensus and position statements are.  Trying to go as far back as possible up the prevention chain, and look at the points where shelter vet med intersects with other vet med is a necessary challenge.  It's so easy to stay in our silos, and how illustrates how helpful a Pet Help Desk would be in reducing the fatigue of trying to stay up to date and connected with who does what, where, and why.  I had to do some homework on where those questions was taking me, and am again reminded of the need for a technician specialty in shelter medicine.  First thing is to finish my certification.  Thank you so much for asking these hard questions.

Audrey, this is one of the sharpest things anyone has put on this thread, and you pulled it together fine.

You named the real gap. Spay/neuter is a known message. The "when," and especially "how early," is not. Vaccines have a clean public schedule everybody half-remembers. Sterilization timing lives almost entirely inside the shelter and rescue world, so a family that did not get their pet from a shelter never hears the early-fix conversation at all. That is not an owner failure. That is a communication failure, and it is fixable.

The pregnant-cat example is the whole argument. A privately owned mom gets spayed, the kittens get handed out intact, and four months later we are doing it again with the next generation. If that owner had known the litter could be fixed alongside mom, and had help lining up cost and scheduling, most of them would say yes. You said it yourself, people would do this if they fully knew it was an option and had some support. That is a program, not a wish. It is a clinic that says bring the whole litter, a small recovery stipend so the week after surgery is not the reason it does not happen, and someone walking them through the timing.

That someone is the Pet Help Desk, and I am glad you got there on your own. The desk catches the overwhelmed owner mid-crisis, knows that fixing the kittens with mom is even an option, and lines up the access before the kittens scatter. It also does the thing you described for yourself, it carries the who-does-what-where so a clinic tech does not have to hold the entire referral map in her head on top of surgery.

The big intact male dog is the same shape. That owner is not anti-neuter, he is uninformed and then exhausted, and by the time he calls he is hoping it is not too late to turn a behavior problem around. The orthopedic question for large-breed owned dogs is real and I am not going to wave it off, the evidence is not settled and the AVMA says individualize. But individualize still needs a door, a price that works, and a trusted person to talk it through, and right now that door mostly does not exist outside the shelter.

We are writing prevention programs up as a handbook so small orgs can run them without reinventing the wheel, and the operational detail from a high-volume clinic is exactly what usually goes missing. If you ever want to share how your clinic runs the pediatric piece and the owner-mom-plus-litter piece, materials, scheduling, staffing, I would credit you and the clinic by name as a research resource. Finish the certification. The field needs the shelter medicine technician specialty more than it knows.

Prevention is the missing piece. Thank you for going this deep on it.

Hi BJ,

After reading all the responses, I wanted to respond, especially after really thinking about Karen's response. I'm currently speaking from someone working directly on the veterinary side in a HVHQ S/N clinic.  I'm old enough to have started in rescue as a determined preteen in the early eighties,  and can now look back over decades. Absolutely we have done amazing things bringing those numbers down.  It don't think anyone involved back then can forget how awful it was, or the impact of pediatric spay and neuter.

I think part of what is going on is that there are several very fractured messages going on around spay/neuter and rescue, and that it gets very confused by social media.  I don't think pediatric or early s/n is a very clear message, I think people only or mostly think of it in terms of animals that you adopt from a shelter. And that's pretty much true. As far as I'm aware, general practice/regular vets are not doing them -they are doing them earliest around six months, or with larger breeds, even much later, 18-24 months due to "evidence" around orthopedic development particularly in larger breed dogs (though the AVMA says when to alter dogs is based on the individual dog, and does not address the debate around potential joint issues, etc, presumably because the evidence doesn't warrant it.  Whether that's true or not -it's a debate out there on social media, with shelters being criticized for it).  For cats, it's have it done by 5 mths.

Pediatric s/n are more difficult, and it's not part of standard vet training as far as I know -I'm not aware of regular vets offering and doing the very early pediatric spays and neuters in their own practices that we are doing in high volume clinics, unless its a specific exception or event.  It's not offered or part of the conversation, it is getting them done by around 5-6 months.  It's not really something that's coming up out of non-shelter settings.  

Given that early pediatric s/n isn't a conversation or recommendation being had outside of shelter and rescue context, I'm not sure the level of awareness about it, which makes it a separate conversation, not general knowledge. I think the message of spay/neuter is very much out there, but not really about when and how early.  And early is only a shelter thing anyway.  So if you are not getting your pet from a shelter, you might not be aware it's even a thing.  Which then also makes it the perfect subject for all kinds of social media debate headaches where terrible and utterly misinformed things get said and spread.  There isn't a consistent message, as there is with vaccinations.  It's generally accepted or at least understood that all puppies and kittens need "baby shots" on a certain schedule. But its not so clear and simple with spaying and neutering -the when part.

When I talk to overwhelmed people who didn't get their pregnant cat in for a spay in time, and desperately want to spay her, and even have some homes lined up, they often do not realize that the kittens could be fixed before they go to their new homes, right along with mom when she gets done. Certainly timing and finances would play a part -having everything line up with financial help and our surgery waitlist would take some extra time and help, but would be a huge win on the prevention side -if those kittens could somehow come into the clinic WITH mom, from a private owner and not a rescue, as it typically happens at our clinic, they could go to homes sterilized without going through a shelter or rescue.  I am not sure how much more risk there might be to kittens that age going home to a private owner instead of a rescue, but it seems managable with guidelines and support. Trying to catch those situations, where a privately owned mom gets spayed, but her kittens are given away unspayed - would be a big prevention imo.  My sense is people would do this if they fully knew it was an option and had some help with cost and scheduling and some positive support and encouragement.

As for dogs, particularly large dogs, there are owners who would not even consider neutering a male puppy, and have no plans to, until that puppy is a big dog they are having problems with. We get this scenario, and all I can think is how much happier everyone would be, had that dog been neutered as a pediatric puppy.  Instead of waiting for... them to be a big giant out of control intact male they didn't anticipate.  These owners are often just exhausted, and hoping that it is not too late for neutering to turn the tide.  If pediatric spaying and neutering were somehow part of the conversation as an option outside of the shelter/rescue realm, maybe it would happen more?  Should it happen more outside of HVHQ clinics through shelters and rescues? Maybe gradually happen more with regular vets?  Be seen more on a continuum to be considered for all pets, rather than only shelter puppies and kittens?  I think an obstacle to this is the uncertainty around potential orthopedic issues if s/n too early, though there is not a consensus statement about that I'm aware of, it's definitely a concern. For shelter dogs, I think people accept the risk, but not so much owned dogs. The Association of Shelter Veterinarians has I think a pretty conservative statement about this similar to the AVMA, except that it does address the matter of potential orthopedic issues and any evidence very qualified and is not conclusive, but they at least acknowledge it as a concern.

I had trouble trying to pull so many thoughts together and be articulate about this.  Many times I kept going back and questioning my assumptions and double checking what the current consensus and position statements are.  Trying to go as far back as possible up the prevention chain, and look at the points where shelter vet med intersects with other vet med is a necessary challenge.  It's so easy to stay in our silos, and how illustrates how helpful a Pet Help Desk would be in reducing the fatigue of trying to stay up to date and connected with who does what, where, and why.  I had to do some homework on where those questions was taking me, and am again reminded of the need for a technician specialty in shelter medicine.  First thing is to finish my certification.  Thank you so much for asking these hard questions.

Hi BJ,

Thanks for more feedback. I'm going to talk more about this with my vets and other point people to get more information on what our exact policy is.  From what I know on the surgery end,  we need the kittens to be at least two pounds, and eight weeks old. We are very strict about the two pound weight minimum and that the kittens are healthy and sturdy enough for surgery for the obvious safety reasons.

I am thinking the ideal scenario is one where a private owner with a mom and kittens could receive some well-informed navigation from a Pet Help Desk person that has the explicit guidelines from the most accessible s/n clinic for whoever calls.  That Desk person could also give support/support/advice/help on how to hang on to the kittens until 8 wks/weight limit is reached -maybe they need some additional food or other vet support, etc.  I'm not sure how to address a person weighing a kitten at home without a gram or pediatric scale.  Rarely, we have a litter come in and one will not quite be big quite big enough, or just not quite robust enough, and they have to sit out and wait until bigger/stronger while their littermates get done. This isn't too much of an issue, since these litters are going back to rescue and that one left out won't be going to a home until they are done.  For a person taking home a litter they brought in with mom, and not all of them qualify for surgery, and some go back intact, that would be a difficult issue, especially with homes lined up and expecting their kitten, or other reasons where they are expecting complete resolution when they pick everyone up. 

Whoever is helping line up such a mom/baby spay outside of a rescue would need to be prepared to do some coaching and supportive explaining, and have the time to do so, not just answer questions.  I can see or hear people start to emotionally shut-down when I am going through information with a lot of ifs and whens, and they experience what I'm saying as more obstacles and more steps to get through, rather than help, and that they don't have the resources or stamina for it, and I'm just another person going down a list with suggestions and maybe a phone number and leaving them pretty much right where they started.  And that they have to start over at the beginning with the next person, if they do make another call, etc.

So it is combining the appropriate and accurate information, as well as the support, coaching and acknowledgement of people at least reaching out and trying to get their animals taken care of.  Which takes time and some emotional availability.  Telling someone the kittens need to stay with mom until eight weeks and big enough, is different than telling someone that and making sure they can do that.  What do they need for that to happen? Maybe its just some support and coaching on how to deal with the future homes who want their kittens now, another bag of kitten food, or that they don't have a very good way to keep kittens indoors those last couple weeks until the appointment, etc.  Things where a lot of empathy and some practical strategies could go a very long way and help people push through the challenges and make it in.  It feels very similar to helping address behavior problems when people feel they have reached a point of surrendering their pet -there's already massive overwhelm.  It's not likely going to be a quick chat going down a list of requirements. It's going to be more involved, likely most of the time. But it would be an amazing prevention if safely spaying mom and babies from private owners could become more mainstream, before they are scattered into new homes, as you so aptly put it.  As always, access to vet teams and clinics that can do those pediatric surgeries at low cost has to be in place to begin with.  A Pet Hep Desk person who knows what can and can't be done, by whom, when, and how and with what funding that might be available, and then take all of that and be able to help that person keep everything together and get across the finish line, meaning mom and litter sterilized, would be pretty darn great.  And they would have a good experience to share that it can actually be done, and tell people the Pet Help Desk walked them through it.  So much more to troubleshoot and think about.  Thank you again for the excellent feedback.

Audrey

Audrey, this is one of the sharpest things anyone has put on this thread, and you pulled it together fine.

You named the real gap. Spay/neuter is a known message. The "when," and especially "how early," is not. Vaccines have a clean public schedule everybody half-remembers. Sterilization timing lives almost entirely inside the shelter and rescue world, so a family that did not get their pet from a shelter never hears the early-fix conversation at all. That is not an owner failure. That is a communication failure, and it is fixable.

The pregnant-cat example is the whole argument. A privately owned mom gets spayed, the kittens get handed out intact, and four months later we are doing it again with the next generation. If that owner had known the litter could be fixed alongside mom, and had help lining up cost and scheduling, most of them would say yes. You said it yourself, people would do this if they fully knew it was an option and had some support. That is a program, not a wish. It is a clinic that says bring the whole litter, a small recovery stipend so the week after surgery is not the reason it does not happen, and someone walking them through the timing.

That someone is the Pet Help Desk, and I am glad you got there on your own. The desk catches the overwhelmed owner mid-crisis, knows that fixing the kittens with mom is even an option, and lines up the access before the kittens scatter. It also does the thing you described for yourself, it carries the who-does-what-where so a clinic tech does not have to hold the entire referral map in her head on top of surgery.

The big intact male dog is the same shape. That owner is not anti-neuter, he is uninformed and then exhausted, and by the time he calls he is hoping it is not too late to turn a behavior problem around. The orthopedic question for large-breed owned dogs is real and I am not going to wave it off, the evidence is not settled and the AVMA says individualize. But individualize still needs a door, a price that works, and a trusted person to talk it through, and right now that door mostly does not exist outside the shelter.

We are writing prevention programs up as a handbook so small orgs can run them without reinventing the wheel, and the operational detail from a high-volume clinic is exactly what usually goes missing. If you ever want to share how your clinic runs the pediatric piece and the owner-mom-plus-litter piece, materials, scheduling, staffing, I would credit you and the clinic by name as a research resource. Finish the certification. The field needs the shelter medicine technician specialty more than it knows.

Prevention is the missing piece. Thank you for going this deep on it.

Hi BJ,

After reading all the responses, I wanted to respond, especially after really thinking about Karen's response. I'm currently speaking from someone working directly on the veterinary side in a HVHQ S/N clinic.  I'm old enough to have started in rescue as a determined preteen in the early eighties,  and can now look back over decades. Absolutely we have done amazing things bringing those numbers down.  It don't think anyone involved back then can forget how awful it was, or the impact of pediatric spay and neuter.

I think part of what is going on is that there are several very fractured messages going on around spay/neuter and rescue, and that it gets very confused by social media.  I don't think pediatric or early s/n is a very clear message, I think people only or mostly think of it in terms of animals that you adopt from a shelter. And that's pretty much true. As far as I'm aware, general practice/regular vets are not doing them -they are doing them earliest around six months, or with larger breeds, even much later, 18-24 months due to "evidence" around orthopedic development particularly in larger breed dogs (though the AVMA says when to alter dogs is based on the individual dog, and does not address the debate around potential joint issues, etc, presumably because the evidence doesn't warrant it.  Whether that's true or not -it's a debate out there on social media, with shelters being criticized for it).  For cats, it's have it done by 5 mths.

Pediatric s/n are more difficult, and it's not part of standard vet training as far as I know -I'm not aware of regular vets offering and doing the very early pediatric spays and neuters in their own practices that we are doing in high volume clinics, unless its a specific exception or event.  It's not offered or part of the conversation, it is getting them done by around 5-6 months.  It's not really something that's coming up out of non-shelter settings.  

Given that early pediatric s/n isn't a conversation or recommendation being had outside of shelter and rescue context, I'm not sure the level of awareness about it, which makes it a separate conversation, not general knowledge. I think the message of spay/neuter is very much out there, but not really about when and how early.  And early is only a shelter thing anyway.  So if you are not getting your pet from a shelter, you might not be aware it's even a thing.  Which then also makes it the perfect subject for all kinds of social media debate headaches where terrible and utterly misinformed things get said and spread.  There isn't a consistent message, as there is with vaccinations.  It's generally accepted or at least understood that all puppies and kittens need "baby shots" on a certain schedule. But its not so clear and simple with spaying and neutering -the when part.

When I talk to overwhelmed people who didn't get their pregnant cat in for a spay in time, and desperately want to spay her, and even have some homes lined up, they often do not realize that the kittens could be fixed before they go to their new homes, right along with mom when she gets done. Certainly timing and finances would play a part -having everything line up with financial help and our surgery waitlist would take some extra time and help, but would be a huge win on the prevention side -if those kittens could somehow come into the clinic WITH mom, from a private owner and not a rescue, as it typically happens at our clinic, they could go to homes sterilized without going through a shelter or rescue.  I am not sure how much more risk there might be to kittens that age going home to a private owner instead of a rescue, but it seems managable with guidelines and support. Trying to catch those situations, where a privately owned mom gets spayed, but her kittens are given away unspayed - would be a big prevention imo.  My sense is people would do this if they fully knew it was an option and had some help with cost and scheduling and some positive support and encouragement.

As for dogs, particularly large dogs, there are owners who would not even consider neutering a male puppy, and have no plans to, until that puppy is a big dog they are having problems with. We get this scenario, and all I can think is how much happier everyone would be, had that dog been neutered as a pediatric puppy.  Instead of waiting for... them to be a big giant out of control intact male they didn't anticipate.  These owners are often just exhausted, and hoping that it is not too late for neutering to turn the tide.  If pediatric spaying and neutering were somehow part of the conversation as an option outside of the shelter/rescue realm, maybe it would happen more?  Should it happen more outside of HVHQ clinics through shelters and rescues? Maybe gradually happen more with regular vets?  Be seen more on a continuum to be considered for all pets, rather than only shelter puppies and kittens?  I think an obstacle to this is the uncertainty around potential orthopedic issues if s/n too early, though there is not a consensus statement about that I'm aware of, it's definitely a concern. For shelter dogs, I think people accept the risk, but not so much owned dogs. The Association of Shelter Veterinarians has I think a pretty conservative statement about this similar to the AVMA, except that it does address the matter of potential orthopedic issues and any evidence very qualified and is not conclusive, but they at least acknowledge it as a concern.

I had trouble trying to pull so many thoughts together and be articulate about this.  Many times I kept going back and questioning my assumptions and double checking what the current consensus and position statements are.  Trying to go as far back as possible up the prevention chain, and look at the points where shelter vet med intersects with other vet med is a necessary challenge.  It's so easy to stay in our silos, and how illustrates how helpful a Pet Help Desk would be in reducing the fatigue of trying to stay up to date and connected with who does what, where, and why.  I had to do some homework on where those questions was taking me, and am again reminded of the need for a technician specialty in shelter medicine.  First thing is to finish my certification.  Thank you so much for asking these hard questions.