Science has shown that daydreaming serves a cognitive function: It can help access memories as well as make connections between ideas and concepts, among other things. So, what does that have to do with animal sheltering? Some days, I daydream about what it would be like to have infinite resources in the forms of unlimited space, time and finances. I ponder how those infinite resources could solve what feels like the infinite problems we hear about daily.

If traffic cooperates, I drive 45 minutes to and from work. If I am having a rough week or am wrestling with a complex set of problems, I do that drive with the radio off. My family tells me that this habit is concerningly weird, but I find driving meditative (the construction on 295 notwithstanding) and an ideal time to do some serious daydreaming. Most days, I don’t indulge in the “infinite resources” daydream but mostly think about how we can do more, do better, with what we have. It’s not nearly as much fun but far more immediate in terms of payoff. I spend a lot of time contemplating how to handle problems without straightforward solutions.

Last week, Midcoast Humane hosted the Maine Federation of Humane Societies’ board meeting, followed by the portion open to the public to attend. The public meeting sparked a conversation about the state of cats in Maine. The discussion included the growing number of cats surrendered to shelters but primarily focused on the increasing unowned or loosely owned outdoor cat population, and we heard about Maine Fed’s efforts to gather data and map out the hotspots containing high homeless cat populations in order to concentrate resources where they are most needed. I daydreamed for a bit in that meeting on how we can help with the cat overpopulation issue. Midcoast Humane has a Mobile Surgical Unit (MSU), but we only have one veterinarian. She can do an incredible number of excellent and fast spay/neuter surgeries in a day, but we need our vet in our shelters for every possible hour we can to oversee the medical care of our shelter pets (today’s pet census is 383). I hopped into the discussion and said that we have the MSU but not enough available vet hours to make a dent in what was being described and then locked eyes with a colleague on the Fed board who has a larger veterinary staff, who was nodding. We spoke afterwards about the possibility of using Midcoast’s MSU and her shelter’s vets to help address this need.

My drive home that day was daydreaming around this idea. Maine Fed’s criteria for mapping hotspots is colonies containing over five cats. At Midcoast Humane, we have seven open sites we are currently working with that contain over 20 cats, let alone over five. The goal of the cat conversation at the meeting was to discuss how we animal welfare organizations can share resources to address a problem that affects us all, statewide. In the midst of my ruminations, a fact I am well aware of but regularly disregard smacked me in the face — we can solve any of the issues facing pets in Maine with sufficient funding. How can we help prevent dozens of 20-100 cat colonies? Spaying and neutering. How do we spay and neuter? With veterinarians and vet techs. How do we get vets and techs? With money. How do we get the money? Short of winning the lottery, which would be hard for me to do since I’m too frugal to waste my money on lottery tickets, we need to convince our communities that what we are offering to pets is worth funding.

There is no direct gain to Midcoast Humane or the areas it serves in sending the MSU outside of our region to spay and neuter pets, just like there is no direct gain to my colleague’s shelter or the towns it serves in sending her vet team along to do the surgeries. However, we exist to help animals. I have to believe that if we do a good enough job sharing our stories, our community members will see the value in supporting programs like this one. I live the dream!

Jess Townsend is executive director of Midcoast Humane.