Have you ever owned a pet you acquired for free as a stray? Do you love that pet any less than others you’ve had in your life?

For decades the conventional wisdom was that charging adoption fees was the right thing to do. It would dissuade anyone from a spur-of-the-moment decision that might end in a return, and not charging a fee would devalue the pet, and in turn, adopters wouldn’t love the pet the same. If you can get it for free, why care for it? After more than twenty years of this research, there is no evidence that reducing or eliminating adoption fees does either of those things. So why do we still see so much resistance to it?

This week we talk with Dr. Karen Sheppard, the director of Huntsville Animal Services in Alabama, who shares how adoption promotions played a role in taking Huntsville to where it is today - a no-kill model for the entire nation.