Why People Dont Adopt and Why they Dont

Why People Don’t Adopt and Why they Don’t Spay/Neuter Pamela Carlisle-Frank Ph. D. and Joshua Frank Ph. D. The Foundation for Interdisciplinary Research and Education Promoting Animal Welfare (FIREPAW)

Pet Overpopulation in the US • About 5 mm dogs and cats killed a year simply because there are not enough available homes • Significantly down from the tens of millions killed a few decades earlier, but still a huge problem that will not easily go away

Ways to address dog and cat overpopulation • Reduce number of new animals born • Reduce number of animals abandoned or relinquished • Increase number of homeless animals adopted

Prior FIREPAW research created a dynamic economic and ecological model of companion animal overpopulation – RESULTS SUGGEST: • If more people can be persuaded to spay/neuter their animal, this is possibly the most effective method of addressing overpopulation • Increasing adoptions is also a very effective method of addressing overpopulation, particularly when those adoptions occur through “substitution” and when the adopted animals are spayed/neutered.

So why don’t people spay/neuter? Is it similar for cats?

What about financial incentives?

- About a quarter (27%) of respondents who did not spay/neuter their animal reported that cost was a factor in their decision. -Of those who reported that cost was a factor, about half would spay/neuter their dog at a cost of $45 dollars, and about four out of five would spay/neuter their dog at a cost of $20.

Who was cost a factor for? • Among people who did not spay/neuter their dog, cost was more likely to be a factor for those without a college degree (40%). • Among respondents who did not spay/neuter their animal, female respondents (50%) were more likely to report that cost was a factor than males (13%). • Cost was more likely to be a factor for younger respondents, with one third (33%) of respondents under 45 citing cost as their primary reason for not spay/neutering the animal, while this was never given as the primary reason by older respondents.

Who gave what reasons? • Dwellers of single family home most frequently gave “breeding” as their primary reason for not spay/neutering their animal (43%), while those residing in multi-unit residences never gave breeding as their primary reason. • Rural respondents (9%) were less likely than urban (43%) or suburban (46%) respondents to report cost as a factor in their decision not to spay/neuter their dog. • In terms of family size, two thirds (67%) of people living along said that cost was a factor in their decision not to spay neuter, compared to 20% for two-person households, 23% for 3 or more person households. • The frequency of breeding being cited as the primary reason for not spaying/neutering went up as family size increased*.

More on who does not spay/neuter • • • People who did not spay/neuter their animal were more likely to be male than their counterparts who did spay/neuter their dog. People who did not spay/neuter their animal we more likely to hold lower levels of education relative to their counterparts who did spay/neuter their dog. People who did not spay/neuter their animal paid a lower average price for their dog relative to their counterparts who did spay/neuter their dog. People who did not spay/neuter their animal were more likely to live in a single-family home than their counterparts who did spay/neuter their dog. The best predictors of which dog guardians will leave their dogs unfixed were sex and education level in that order. In fact, 92% of respondents who did not fix their dogs were male or did not have a bachelor’s degree (compared to 75% of the total population of respondents).

When additional background information was included in the survey that stressed the important link between spaying/neutering dogs and euthanasia at shelters, respondents did show significantly higher willingness to consider spaying/neutering their animal in the future

Where people get their dogs

One controversial option: financial incentives (breeder taxes)

Could anything be done to change purchase decision?

Effect of adding language promoting benefits of adoption on willingness to go to shelter

Are “pure bred” dogs better quality or more predictable in qualities as some have argued?

Discussion questions • Is it ignorance or a lack of caring that stops people from adopting and spay/neutering? • So how do we reach the public? • Addressing specific issues: – Sterilization as harm/taking something away – Pet overpopulation not my responsibility – Want specific type of dog/puppy