The Big Dog Superhighway Bypasses the Only Exit That Works: Spay/Neuter

A Solution Manufactured for the Camera—While Proven Strategies Are Left Behind

A disturbing trend is emerging in animal welfare circles that is quietly undermining the very mission these organizations claim to champion. While pet overpopulation continues to plague communities across the country, some of the nation’s largest animal welfare organizations are doubling down on a strategy that may be exacerbating the problem: transporting homeless animals from high-intake shelters to communities with greater demand for adoptable pets.

At first glance, these transport programs appear compassionate and pragmatic. They save lives and make for great PR. But a closer look reveals a troubling paradox: these high-profile efforts often sideline more effective, less glamorous solutions like high-volume spay/neuter, targeted sterilization, and community-based pet retention. By prioritizing visibility over viability, the movement risks deepening the crisis it aims to solve.

This week, at the national Animal Care Expo in Las Vegas, Kristen Hassen unveiled the latest iteration of this approach: the “Big Dog Superhighway.” Marketed as a bold solution to overcrowded shelters, it promises faster dog flow and fewer barriers to placement. But beneath the branding lies a familiar pattern—one that prioritizes optics over substance, logistics over prevention, and dog transport over public safety.

What’s being peddled as innovation is, in truth, a rebranding of crisis management. The Superhighway offers no meaningful investment in foundational services. Instead, it reinforces the same broken machinery that created the current crisis: suppress intakes, export problems, and spin the data. In this model, animals aren’t the mission—they’re inventory to be distributed.

Driving in Circles: Transports Don’t Address the Root Cause of Pet Overpopulation, but Spay/Neuter Does!

The Spay/Neuter Solution We Ignore

Veterinary and shelter professionals, including national leaders, have long understood what truly reduces shelter intake and euthanasia: preventing unwanted litters before they happen.

According to the 2016 Veterinary Medical Care Guidelines for Spay-Neuter Programs, “At this time, HQHVSN [high-quality, high-volume spay-neuter] programs offer the best approach to reducing shelter impoundment and euthanasia of cats and dogs.” Dr. Cristie Kamiya, Chief of Shelter Medicine at Humane Society Silicon Valley, affirms: “Communities with access to spay-neuter services tend to have lower shelter intake and higher adoption rates.”

Even the ASPCA once stated it “strongly supports spay/neuter as an effective means to reduce shelter intake”—before quietly defunding such programs years ago.

Where real investment occurs, results follow. State-funded initiatives like Maryland’s and New Hampshire’s have cut euthanasia by as much as 75 percent. These aren’t theories; they’re proven models. And yet, rather than scale them, national organizations have turned to spectacle: flashy transport networks, cross-country adoption events, and the illusion of progress.

In chasing optics, we’re abandoning the one strategy that actually works.

Big Dog Superhighway: When Marketing Takes the Wheel and Prevention Gets Left Behind

Following the Money

Transport programs don’t just move animals—they move money. They’re often tied to high-yield donation campaigns, grant cycles, and social media metrics that reward visibility over impact. Each long-distance transport can cost $150–$300 per animal, not including staff, vehicle maintenance, or post-transport care—funds that could sterilize dozens of animals locally and stop the problem at its source. That math doesn’t favor prevention.

In 2022 alone, more than 26,000 animals were transported out of Oklahoma, according to the University of Oklahoma Center for Applied Social Research. Yet the state’s spay/neuter infrastructure remains severely underfunded. The result: a revolving door of animals entering shelters, getting exported, and leaving behind a community still overwhelmed by pet overpopulation.

Major national organizations—including Best Friends Animal Society—have built vast donor bases around this model. By highlighting the drama of rescue and relocation while sidelining prevention, they turn crisis into currency. The worse things look, the more money flows—just not into the solutions that would actually end the cycle.

A Dangerous Shell Game

This crisis economy has its own class of architects. Chief among them is Kristen Hassen, a former shelter executive turned consultant, now working closely with both municipal agencies and national nonprofits like Best Friends. She’s one of the leading proponents of the so-called "Crisis Narrative," —a framing that blames shelter overcrowding on housing instability, inflation, and inequitable funding while minimizing the decisive role of affordable, accessible spay/neuter.

Hassen’s proposed fix? Intake suppression, long-distance transport, flashy adoption drives, and the dismantling of long-standing safety and intake policies. Public services like low-cost sterilization, breed-specific regulations, and behavioral evaluations are abandoned in favor of a marketing campaign that sells transport as progress.

It’s a shell game. The animals don’t disappear—they’re shipped across country like so many widgets in a supply chain. And in city after city where this model takes hold, the real costs show up later: in overwhelmed rescue partners, unprepared adopters, and communities left to absorb the consequences.

Transport Failures: A Pattern of Negligence

In early 2025, the Humane Society of Southern Arizona (HSSA) faced a deadly outbreak of Streptococcus zooepidemicus after transporting a dog from an overcrowded shelter without proper quarantine or disclosure protocols. The source shelter remains uncertain, and the number of animals exposed is unclear. This lack of transparency is not an outlier; it's a hallmark of the current transport culture.

The negligence runs deeper. In August 2023, HSSA accepted over 300 small animals—including guinea pigs, rabbits, and rats—from the San Diego Humane Society. Shortly after, HSSA transferred them to Colten Jones, a reptile breeder operating under the name “The Fertile Turtle”. In a text message obtained by KVOA, Jones made clear his intent: the animals were to be used as reptile feed.

Out of the 318 animals transferred, only 62 were returned; the rest are presumed dead. This scandal led to the dismissal of HSSA's CEO and the resignation of its Chief Operating Officer —clear fallout from a system that prioritizes transport over animal welfare.

These cases underscore a critical issue: without stringent oversight and transparency, transport programs can cause more harm than good, undermining the very mission they aim to serve.

The Fallout

Across the country, communities are waking up to the consequences of BFAS-backed policies. In 2023, Harlingen, Texas, terminated its relationship with the group, citing deteriorating shelter conditions. In El Paso, animal advocate Ron Comeau has repeatedly called out BFAS policies as the root of that community’s growing public safety nightmare, saying, “It’s going to take El Paso years to recover from Best Friends’ programs.”

Riverside County, California is embroiled in a lawsuit and mounting public backlash over a $2.6 million consulting contract awarded to Kristen Hassen. Critics and local advocates allege her approach—encouraging the public to leave stray animals on the streets to reduce shelter intake—leads to neglect and poor outcomes for animals. The controversy has prompted calls for audits, contract cancellation, and a fundamental rethinking of shelter management in the county.

In San Antonio, Hassen's "let them roam" approach culminated in tragedy. After repeated complaints, three pit bulls were released back to their owner—only to kill an elderly man days later. This incident illustrates the dangers of prioritizing live release rates over community safety, leaving local officials and communities grappling with the aftermath.

Even in cities where BFAS once enjoyed influence, Los Angeles, Indianapolis, Danville—the tide is turning. Officials are rejecting their pressure tactics, failed models, and empty promises. What was once marketed as transformative is now being recognized for what it is: a dangerous experiment with lives at stake.

Defending a Data-Driven, Community-Focused Approach

Hassen and BFAS defend their strategies as modern, humane, and data-driven. Hassen has called her managed intake and community animal policies “forward-thinking” and “community-focused,” modeled after international systems where free-roaming animals coexist with people. BFAS states, “Transport programs are crucial in preventing this killing because they give at-risk pets lifesaving lifts to areas where they have greater chances of finding homes,” and defines no-kill as “saving the life of every animal who can be saved.”

There’s no question that transport saves lives in the short term, when properly managed. But when these programs become the centerpiece—while proven prevention tools like spay/neuter are sidelined—the result is a system chasing symptoms instead of solving problems. Live-release metrics may look good in reports and on social media, but without addressing the root causes of overpopulation, the crisis only deepens.

Marketing Over Mission

Transport doesn’t just fail to address root causes—it distorts public understanding of what works. Donors are led to believe that every dog on a transport van represents progress. In reality, many of those vans shuttle animals from one struggling community to another, without fixing the conditions that created the crisis.

Meanwhile, the tools that do solve the problem—sterilization, community retention, and field services—are defunded, dismissed, or dismantled in favor of better optics. Public safety and animal welfare are no longer the mission. Marketing is.

A Call for Reinvestment

It’s time to re-center the conversation on prevention—not perpetual crisis. That means meaningful investment in spay/neuter programs, community-based services, and honest data—not shell games.

As long as transport and live-release rates are treated as the gold standard, millions of animals will continue entering shelters that could have stayed empty—if only prevention had been the priority.

Ed Boks is a former Executive Director of the New York City, City of Los Angeles, and Maricopa County Animal Care & Control Departments, and a former Board Director of the National Animal Control Association. His work has been published in the LA Times, New York Times, Newsweek, Real Clear Policy, Sentient Media, and now on Animal Politics with Ed Boks.

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