Miami Dade Animal Services is a kill shelter. Dogs and cats are always in constant danger of being euthanized because of the limited space. But something a lot of people don't know about are the limited ways MDAS tries reaching out for communal help.

High-school children, as everyone knows, need community service hours that are required for graduation. Instead of having hours as an incentive for teenagers, MDAS gives out barely ten-twenty for two weeks. The two options to help MDAS are to volunteer directly with the shelter and/or to foster animals and attempt to find them forever homes.

The proposal is to increase the amount of community service hours given out to mobilize young adults and children in Miami Dade County to save more animals' lives while simultaneously relieving the overcapacity of the pound. Currently, MDAS gives 1-3 hours per day per dog adopted and 1-3 per day at the shelter hands-on. Fostering hours should be bumped up to 50-100 hours per week or set a minimum of 8 hours a day. This will truly cause an influx of teenagers and even parents to go to the shelter and help the animals there that are in need of interaction, a safe home, and new friends. 

This is the response given by email from the chief of shelter services: "As far as community hours as a foster, it is departmental policy that we give a certain number of hours per pet, per day. The standard is three (3) hours per pet, per day for healthy, adult dogs. If fostering a neonate, the hours are five (5) hours per pet, per day. We highlight this at the orientation to ensure that all foster parents know in advance what they can expect. The reason we do this is that foster parents never truly care for the foster pet for the entire day (school, work, etc.)." 

Foster parents DO care dutifully. For at least eight hours, foster parents are home, taking care of the animal, even if foster parents are in high school. Not to mention, some animals need extra supplies and care, and of course, foster parents are constantly looking for an adopter. Also, students have summer, winter, and spring breaks when they are not in school; many high-school students do not work either. If anything, most high-school students try to accrue community service hours during these breaks. When little hours are given for such an strenuous and consuming task, heads are turned, shoulders are shrugged, and dozens of children take on other tasks with more fair compensation. 

Without a greater amount of hours given, high-school children will feel discouraged to help the animals at a shelter that frankly, needs the help to control its overwhelming population. 

For the sake of all the innocent animals at MDAS, I call on you to take a stand and petition for better hours to improve the conditions at the shelter and to motivate young adults to be proactive with Miami's shelters and animal welfare. 

Thank you. 

Photo found at: http://www.examiner.com/article/mass-killing-expected-any-minute-at-miami-dade-animal-shelter