Amid overcrowding, the St. Joseph Animal Shelter is encouraging spay and neuter efforts

By Leah Rainwater

After seeing major intakes within the last year, the St. Joseph Animal Shelter is encouraging community members to spay or neuter pets.

“It’s not just here in St. Joe, it’s nationwide that shelters are continually overcrowded,” said Senior Animal Care Specialist, Aubrey Silvey. “The rescues are full, the fosters are full. There’s just not enough people and not enough homes to take care of the amount of pets that we’re seeing anymore.”

Silvey said, in order to combat the influx of animals, the only thing that can be done is spaying or neutering.

Currently, the shelter spays or neuters pets before they go to their “fur-ever” homes. 

Silvey said spaying or neutering is also better health-wise for pets, as it cuts down on any diseases that they could catch.

However, for those who feel the act is unnecessary, Silvey has a few recommendations.

“I would highly encourage you to reach out to your veterinarian,” said Silvey. “Talk to them about it, and then at the end of the day, if you’re not going to spay or neuter your pet, it’s incredibly important that you’re really responsible and keep a close eye on them.”

Throughout the last year, the shelter has seen a 4 to 5% increase in intake.

“I can tell you, when I started working here five years ago, if we got in a litter of puppies we were all so excited because we never saw small puppies here at the shelter,” said Silvey. “And now, I can’t remember a day we haven’t had multiple litters of puppies.”

Currently, the St. Joseph Animal Shelter meets the “no kill number”, meaning they have a 90% save rate or higher.

If the shelter didn’t meet the 90% rate, it would have to euthanize animals. 

The shelter itself, is sitting at a 97% save rate for dogs, but that doesn’t go without a few leaps and strides.

“The Friends of the Animal Shelter have done a lot of sponsorships for adoption specials over this past year, to prevent us from having to make decisions from lack of space,” said Silvey. “If it wasn’t for that, we surely would have had to make decisions for lack of space.”

Silvey also said the community has been very responsive within the past year with the adoption specials, but there’s still a long way to go.

“As the (pet) population continues to increase, and we’re seeing more and more litters of pets, it’s going to become harder and harder.” said Silvey. “So we really need the community to understand that spay and neuter is the way forward for us to be able to all work together to save more animals.”

Anyone seeking spay or neuter resources can contact the St. Joseph Animal Shelter at (816) 271-4877 or email the shelter at contact@petforu.com.