Opinion By Michael Rosenberg, co-founder of the Pets’ Trust
I went to the Miami-Dade animal shelter in Medley Sunday, to observe the protest, not to participate. I wanted to see what the message was, what it is the protesters wanted.
The animal shelter at Medley holds a special place for me. As a human, I lived in a dog cage in that building for three days in October of 2012. Yes, it was hot, old and decrepit, and a place where 60 to 80 mostly healthy animals were killed every day from 1970 to 2013 to make space for the 100 or so dogs brought to the shelter each day, on average. The policy from 1970 (as far as I can go back) to 2013 was to kill for space.
One hundred animals would be surrendered each day, and 60 to 80 were killed to make space. Every day.
Read related: Protesters want answers, justice for Rocky at Miami-Dade animal shelter
The Pets’ Trust was founded to try to stop that. But while the community overwhelmingly supported the Pets’ Trust plan with their votes, elected officials did not honor those votes. If you really want to be angry, watch the movie to learn more about the Pets’ Trust and what our elected officials didn’t do: Political Animals…The Story of the Pets’ Trust.
Flash forward to 2025, and while the killing has dramatically decreased (in the shelter), the intake of animals stays the same. 
Many animals are still turned away. The new shelter that was built in 2015 is beyond capacity, so the dungeons of Medley were reopened to create more space.
No one wanted to open this old draconian shelter, but as the new shelter simply could not hold all of the animals, the Medley shelter was brought back to its awful life. There was simply no place to keep this overflow of continued incoming animals and killing for space is not an option anymore.
Of course no one likes the Medley shelter. It’s natural to want to protest the conditions there. The good news is this Medley shelter is coming down and a brand new 25,000 square foot, very modern facility will be built in South Dade. It will take time to build it, but at least it is coming.
However, warehousing animals is not the solution and this is where the majority of the money is going towards. In the past 12 years MDAS has received $327 million dollars. The County plan spent $200 million dollars more than what had been their previous average budget from 2012 back and the chart shows you what they have to show for it. Intake numbers are the same as the early 2000’s when the average budget was $10 million, and today it’s actually worse because more and more animals are being turned away and the shelter is over double its capacity.
Most animals come in healthy and some start to become sick from contagious diseases, stress and become unadoptable which can lead to being euthanized. The adoption rate has not changed in the past 12 years and spay/neuter surgeries are far behind.
Read related: Animal advocates protest shelter conditions, use of old ‘house of horrors’
It’s wonderful that the protesters want to keep the plight of our animals in the forefront of public attention, but signs calling this a death camp, a killing shelter, or that Miami-Dade Animal Services Director Annette Jose is lying, are not the correct message. The message for what was needed and still is needed is the message of the Pets’ Trust Plan, the overpopulation problem that is the cause of there being so many animals — half a million cats on the streets for example — is an extensive spay/neuter program doing at least four times what we are doing now. We need to do over 100,000 of these surgeries a year, not 25,000…..or we’ll never get ahead of the problem and sadly, the new shelter will be full on the day it opens.
If I participated in this protest, my sign would have been…..More Surgeries Now!
Again, I thank the protesters for wanting to make conditions better, but while the new animal shelter will be a better place to live, it will not solve the animal overpopulation problem which is the root of all of this mess we are in.
Michael Rosenberg is a tireless advocate for animals and humans in Miami-Dade and beyond. Rosenberg is co-founder of the Pets’ Trust Initiative, which got 65% of voters to agree in 2012 on a massive spay/neuter plan to help keep the population of strays down. He is also the longtime president of the Kendall Federation of Homeowner Associations.
Op Ed from Michael Rosenberg: Miami-Dade needs Pets’ Trust more than ever added by Ladra on
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Dear Mr. Amador,
Thank you for pointing out my deficiencies. First, I didn’t know my name was “Mark”, as Mr. Amador stated.
I called my parents and they confirmed. Yes….my name is really “Mark”. Somehow through these past years, with typos, and auto correct, it got changed to “Michael”. Even my own brother didn’t know it! He’s always called me Michael, but now he will call me “Mark”. It’s wonderful to finally know who I really am. Without the research of Mr. Amador who discovered I am Mark, how would I have ever known my real name. So, we must assume that everything else Mr. Amador said is also accurate???!? When it comes to knowing the facts, we can certainly trust Mr. Amador?!?!?!
Signed….Mark Rosenberg…..the new me. Goodbye Michael!!!
Ms. Smith,
I also want to thank you for pointing out some other deficiencies. Being educated by you is really helpful, so thank you for that as well. You also suggested that I didn’t live in the animal cage for the full three days in the early days of the Pets’ Trust. You said you are “pretty sure” I didn’t live in the crate for the entire time”.
DANG!!!! You got me. Your information, (just like my name is Mark) is incredible. How did you figure out I was sneaking out several times a day, and spending the nights at the Ritz?! The County even paid for a deluxe suite! The press that covered this event from start to finish didn’t discover I was at the Ritz! I had created a mannequin that looked just like me to fool everyone, but it didn’t fool you!!!! Now the whole world knows!
To be serious, both of your emails do nothing to help the animal situation. It’s just personal attacks and when people have nothing to say about someone, that’s what they do. They’ve done it before.
However, Mr. Amador and Ms. Smith do try to help the animal cause and I’m sure in their own way are helpful and have probably done some amazing work. Their style is just different and in their frustrations (and I can understand the challenges of these issues) they just make these personal against me and others.
Mr. Amador and Ms. Smith, if you ever need any help, let me know. If they only way you know how to operate are personal attacks, you can also do that as well.
As usual, Michael “Mark” Rosenberg has no idea what he’s talking about. The Pets Trust is a nonprofit scam pure and simple. His continued push to fund this boondoggle is absurd. Fortunately for the citizens of Dade County, even Mayor Cava isn’t foolish enough to support it.
Not a single tax dollar should be handed over to an outside organization for spay/neuter services when MDAS can easily perform these procedures in house or through directly managed outside vendors. There is absolutely no need to create an additional layer of bureaucracy with The Pets Trust.
Michael Rosenberg has never done rescue work. He doesn’t work directly with the animals at MDAS and has repeatedly misrepresented the abusive conditions there. His constant defense of the incompetent Annette Jose is self serving and an embarrassment to the entire community of animal advocates who are working tirelessly to correct the injustices at MDAS.
Dear Michael, the tunnel vision is insane along with your need to defend a directors actions which you know nothing about. It’s called willful blindness. All you see are numbers. You don’t know what goes on at that shelter. We actually had to educate you. So the only hero’s I see are the ones bringing awareness by protesting, posting on social media and the people saving those innocent dogs. YES DOGS since you seem to focus more on the cats. Also I’m pretty sure you didn’t live in that crate the entire time but I commend you for your effort.
Just like the dog in the picture in time now that legal here the shelter is going to full of unadoptable pit bulls
The root of the problem is the puppy mills. This a business built in using the animals for profit. The counties should prohibit this and not until this is done the problem will continue. governments give a blind eye to this situation
Interesting table. Some obvious questions here.
Over 16 years annual number of intake/adoptions has been relatively constant. BUT the number of employees has tripled (2.9x).
Spays have doubled (2.5x). Has this driven the increase in employment? Has the rescue evolved into a surgery center?
How are they over budget? If the intake was 32,400 and 8,700 were adopted that leaves us with 23,700 at $1150 annual fee per animal = $27.255 Million and that’s not counting the ones that have been euthanized, so something is not adding up here.
A local hero!