bob barker says... spay and neuter your pets!

The tv game show "The Price is Right" is famous for two things, right? "Come on down!!" and Bob Barker's reminder to neuter and spay your pets. Bob Barker thinks that spaying and neutering is a good thing. He funds clinic and voucher programs for s/n surgeries all over the country.

The county I just moved to thinks that spay/neuter is a good thing, too. In fact, we've had a law for many years that requires spay/neuter of all animals over 6 months of age. Very few people seem to know of this law. When animals come into the shelter as strays, the first time, we offer to fix their animals at a low cost, and to waive their impound fee. Very few people take us up on this offer. We offer the cost argument: we explain to them that the second time their animal comes into the shelter (and we get lots of repeat offenders), there is a mandatory spay/neuter. This time, the impound fee is almost double, and the owner has to pay for the surgery fee. It's not cheap to bail out an animal twice. Liscences for unaltered dogs are more expensive (for those who are compliant and bother to liscence their dogs) than liscences for fixed dogs, and there is a processing fee for unaltered liscences each year.

And it's generally just risky to have an intact animal around. I would imagine that most people would have some, if not constant worries about female dogs and cats getting pregnant, or males impregnating others. There are health risks of having intact animals (a short google search brought up some of these: health risks to unspayed bitches and unneutered dogs, Health: spaying and neutering, Canine neutering and a billion more) like increased risks of prostate cancer, pyometra, etc. Most people seem unclear about the difference between backyard breeding and reputable breeders. They do not realize that by having "just one litter" or by leaving their dog intact and having an "oops" litter, they are part of the problem, and becoming a a BYB.

But the hardest part of all this, for me, is that we have this great mandatory s/n ordinance and no way to help people be responsible and fix their pets. I know all about overpopulation, and all about the excuses people will give to not fix their animals, or to be BYB's. At the end of the day, that's not what gets me. What gets me are the 5 calls a day that I take asking for low cost s/n services. We don't have any in the county. There is one city in the county that has a free program for low income people, but there are all sorts of people in the county that aren't in that city, or are in that city and aren't low income but can't afford s/n, or are low income but not in that city, etc, etc. A coworker suggested that we go around to every vet and ask them to do one free surgery a month. That would be 12 a year, and probably 200-300 for the whole county. It would be a start. My dream? To get the county organized and apply for Maddie's Fund money. Until then, every day, I just have to think of Bob, and encourage people to spay and neuter their pets.