08/12/2026
Sometimes the hardest thing to change isn’t a policy. It’s a mindset.
For decades, communities across the state have repeated the same ideas about homeless cats, shelter populations, euthanasia, and what is supposedly “necessary.” When we hear something long enough, it starts to feel like fact.
But “this is how we’ve always done it” is not evidence that it’s the best way to do it.
We know more today. Other communities have tried different approaches. We have data. We have successful models. And when new evidence challenges an old belief, progress requires something that can be incredibly difficult: being willing to unlearn.
That is the mindset shift I hope we can make in Bay City.
Not the City versus cat advocates.
Not animal control versus citizens.
Not wildlife advocates versus cat advocates.
Not “we tried that before” and the conversation ends.
Instead: What have successful communities learned that we can learn from? What can we do differently? And how can we do it together?
Real change will have to happen from the top down AND the bottom up.
It will take city leadership willing to reconsider old approaches. It will take Animal Control, rescues like Lone Star Stray Cat Club, TNR volunteers, fosters, veterinarians, donors, and ordinary citizens who simply love animals sitting at the same table and working toward the same goal.
Because there are people in this community who WANT to help. I’m one of them. There are people willing to trap. Foster. Transport. Fundraise. Organize. Educate. Volunteer. Find homes. Build partnerships.
Let us help.
We cannot change yesterday. But we absolutely get to decide what Bay City does tomorrow.
And maybe the first step isn’t another ordinance.
Maybe it’s being brave enough to ask:
What if some of the things we’ve believed for years simply aren’t true anymore? And what could we accomplish if we were willing to change our minds? 🐾
Hundreds of communities in the United States have chosen to stop killing healthy and treatable pets that are in shelters, and so can yours.
The shelter industry has spent decades blaming everyone but itself:
LIE: "We kill because of overpopulation".
LIE: "We kill animals because people don't spay or neuter them."
LIE: "The purchase of every pet results in the death of a animal in a shelter."
It doesn't work. Communities that have the same intake, budgets, and rates of refusing to spay and neuter as their neighbors have achieved save rates of up to 98%; all by altering the way the shelter runs.
The data is in, and No Kill does work.
What doesn't work: stating that killing policies are "necessary" when at the same time refusing to put into action the programs, such as TNR, foster networks, rescue partnerships, and medical or behavior rehabilitation, which elsewhere have been shown to save lives.
It is not inevitable that healthy and treatable animals should be put to death; that is a choice, and one that an increasing number of communities are choosing to finally make correctly: by saving them all.
Get involved with USA PAW and help us achieve No Kill in every community, beginning with your own.
🔗 USA PAW
Respectful debate is welcome; any trolling and attempts to justify animal abuse will be removed. (Kill apologists will be banned.)
