All this said, I am not advocating sterilize and release over adoption into a loving home, just as I do not advocate it for community cats who are social with humans over adoption for those cats.
Rather, I am advocating this approach only as an alternative to killing or doing nothing at all.
In other words, if community "leaders" refuse to hold shelter leaders accountable and reform the shelter and instead advocate for things like helicopter gunships or round up and kill campaigns as they have in Dallas, sterilize and release provides a humane alternative. In addition, if animal lovers and rescuers in a community can be empowered to sterilize such animals, it would reduce the birth of feral puppies and improve the lives of dogs, while promoting neighborhood tranquility and public safety.
Isn't that a vastly preferable option to doing nothing or mass slaughter?
If a pound is going to kill community dogs, if rescuers are not going to find them homes, if robust transfer programs are not in place to get those dogs to a community where they could find homes, they, like the dogs in the Dominican Republic and cats in the U.S., should realize all the other benefits that would come of sterilization.
They can always be brought into the shelter when there is capacity. They might be placed through a rescue group or directly off the street. Or they live as community dogs.
In fact, I also believe that communities should consider sterilization and release for dogs while shelters are undergoing reform in a bid to become No Kill as a stop-gap measure to eliminate killing just as we do for community cats.
Instead of the ubiquitous five or ten years plans to No Kill, which are little more than delay tactics or money grabs, the animals could be sterilized and released (and fed) while the shelter works to improve processes, reduce intakes, and increase capacity over time, without any interim period of killing.
Of course, once shelters are fully reformed, once we live in a No Kill nation, sterilization and release wouldn't be the first choice for community dogs, just like it does not have to be for community cats who are social with people: redemption and adoption would be. It would and should, however, remain a choice, because killing should never be a choice at all.
