Every January, shelters across South Florida see the same pattern: a wave of returns. Animals that were adopted in a warm rush of holiday feeling come back a few weeks later, usually with an honest and sympathetic explanation attached. The apartment didn’t allow it. The work schedule changed. The dog was bigger, louder, or more anxious than anyone expected. Nobody in that story is a villain. But something clearly broke down between the intention and the follow-through, and that gap is what interests me most about Garrett O’Rourke animal welfare conversations — not the emotion, which is rarely in short supply, but the planning, which often is.
I’m a business executive in Miami Beach, and my day job has nothing to do with animals. I run Commercial Development Group, and my background is in sales, business development and call-center operations. But animal welfare is one of the things I care about outside of work, and I’ve come to think the two subjects rhyme more than people assume. Both are about matching enthusiasm with capacity. Both punish good intentions that aren’t backed by a plan.
What running a business taught me about commitment
Running a business teaches you that the exciting part is the easy part. Hiring someone is exciting. Training them, managing them, giving them feedback for two years — that’s the actual job. In my experience, the people who struggle as managers aren’t the ones who lack enthusiasm. They’re the ones who confuse the moment of decision with the work that follows it.
Adopting an animal works exactly the same way. The decision takes an afternoon. The commitment takes ten to fifteen years. A dog adopted today may still need walks in 2038. A cat you bring home at three months old will likely outlast a job change, a move, maybe a relationship or two. When you’re responsible for a team, you learn to think in terms of the whole arc, not the first week. That habit transfers well to pets.
Over the years I’ve also learned to be suspicious of decisions made at peak emotion. That’s true in negotiation, it’s true in investing, and it’s true standing in front of a kennel with a dog looking up at you. Feeling something strongly is not the same as being ready. The shelters know this better than anyone, which is why good ones ask uncomfortable questions before they hand over a leash. Those questions aren’t obstacles. They’re quality control, and they exist to protect the animal from a second abandonment.
Garrett O’Rourke on animal welfare: why the gap keeps happening
I think the return cycle persists for three straightforward reasons, and none of them require judging anyone.
First, people underestimate the numbers. Numbers matter. A pet is a recurring monthly expense with unpredictable spikes. Food, preventive medication, licensing, grooming for certain breeds, boarding when you travel, and the veterinary bill you didn’t plan for. In South Florida you can add heartworm prevention and flea and tick control to the baseline, because our climate never gives those things a real off-season. If someone can’t comfortably describe what the animal costs per month, they haven’t finished the decision.
Second, people underestimate the time. A young dog is not a background presence. It needs exercise, training and attention, and a bored animal will find its own entertainment in your furniture. Miami Beach is full of small apartments and long commutes, which is fine — plenty of dogs thrive here — but only when the owner is honest about how many hours the animal will be alone.
Third, people shop for the wrong attributes. They pick for looks or breed reputation rather than temperament and energy level. A shelter volunteer who has spent forty hours with an animal can tell you far more useful things than a photo can. That’s local knowledge, and ignoring it is a mistake I see people make in business constantly: they trust a spec sheet over the person who has actually worked with the thing.
Practical steps before you adopt
None of this is complicated. It’s just rarely written down before the decision gets made.
- Read your lease first. Weight limits, breed restrictions and pet deposits are common across South Florida rentals. Confirm in writing, not by assumption.
- Build a realistic monthly budget, then add a cushion for emergency veterinary care. Many people use pet insurance or a dedicated savings buffer. Either approach beats improvising during a crisis.
- Match the animal to your actual life, not your aspirational one. If you travel often, a lower-energy adult animal or a cat may be a far better fit than a puppy.
- Consider adult and senior animals. They’re the hardest to place and often the easiest to live with. Their personalities are already known quantities — which, as an investor, is a quality I’ve learned to value.
- Have a hurricane plan. This is specific to where we live. Know which shelters accept pets, keep carriers accessible, keep a few days of food and medication on hand, and make sure microchip registration and tags are current before storm season, not during it.
- Spay, neuter and microchip. These are the unglamorous basics that reduce shelter intake more than almost anything else.
- Plan for training. Most behavior surrenders are preventable. A few sessions early costs less than a rehoming later.
Supporting shelters when adoption isn’t the right call
The healthiest thing I can say about responsible pet ownership is that sometimes the responsible answer is not right now. That doesn’t mean you’re out of options. Rescue organizations across Miami-Dade and Broward run almost entirely on volunteer labor, and the help they need is often unglamorous: walking dogs, laundry, transport runs, photographing animals so they show well online, fostering for a few weeks while a medical case recovers.
Fostering in particular is underrated. It creates kennel space, it gives the shelter real information about how an animal behaves in a home, and it’s a finite commitment — which makes it accessible to people whose lives are genuinely too unsettled for adoption. People matter in this system as much as the animals do. Shelter staff and volunteers do emotionally heavy work at modest pay, and a community that treats them as partners rather than as a drop-off point gets better outcomes.
Community is a local business, not a slogan
The Garrett O’Rourke community view is unremarkable and I think it’s correct: neighborhoods run on small, repeated acts rather than dramatic ones. Consistency matters more than intensity. Someone who fosters two cats a year for a decade has done more good than someone who makes one grand gesture and disappears. It’s the same principle that makes sales organizations work — steady, repeatable effort beats occasional heroics every time.
Living in Miami Beach, you see both versions. You see the transient version, where a pet is part of a lifestyle image and gets left behind when the lease ends. And you see the durable version: the neighbor who has walked the same aging rescue dog at the same hour every morning for eight years. The second one is the version worth being.
An animal in your home is not a purchase or an accessory. It’s a dependent with no ability to advocate for itself, and it will reflect back exactly the level of preparation and patience you brought to the decision. Take the extra week to think it through. Talk to the shelter. Do the arithmetic honestly. Then, if the answer is yes, follow through for the whole fifteen years — because that’s the part that actually counts.
Photo by Cierra Voelkl on Unsplash