Dogs are being dumped across California’s high desert and left behind on scorching days with no food, water or shade. The San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors can help stop this at the source by funding free, regular spay and neuter clinics in remote high desert towns.

The county’s shelters are already overwhelmed. In September, San Bernardino County Animal Care said its shelters were at full capacity, and local rescuers say they have no room left either. Apple Valley rescuer Mike Ryan told the San Bernardino Sun that dogs abandoned in the desert die “a horrible death.”

Much of this starts with litters nobody planned. In communities like Adelanto, Victorville, Hesperia, Lucerne Valley and Barstow, many families don’t have the money or transportation to get a dog fixed. Melissa Durston of the nonprofit Spayce Project told the Sun that a bill of around $600 is simply out of reach for people struggling to buy gas or feed their kids. Some owners have walked three miles to the group’s free clinics, using a shoelace as a leash. “They’re trying to do the right thing,” Durston said.

Free clinics work when people can reach them. At one Lucerne Valley event in September, the Spayce Project fixed 52 dogs in a single day. But one nonprofit running on grants and donations can’t cover the entire high desert by itself.

The Board of Supervisors should fund recurring, no-cost spay and neuter clinics across the high desert and partner with the groups already doing this work. Fewer unwanted litters means fewer dogs abandoned in the heat and less pressure on shelters that taxpayers already fund.

Sign the petition to ask the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors to fund free spay and neuter clinics in the high desert, before more dogs are left to die in the heat.