I've been spending a lot of time lately writing letters, signing petitions and sending in money to fight the so-called "California Healthy Pets Act," or AB1634, as it's otherwise known. You might wonder why someone living in Tennessee would care about this misguided piece of legislation. Not only do I have plenty of pet-owning friends in California, but as a dog owner, breeder, show exhibitor, and animal lover I, and thousands of other animal lovers throughout this country, have been appalled at this attempt to make spaying and neutering pets mandatory in spite of all of the evidence which clearly shows mandatory spay/neutering does not reduce animal shelter populations or lessen the number of animals which animal control has to euthanize. Quite the reverse. Mandatory spay/neutering, along with requiring a $500 permit to keep an intact pet, results in more owner turn-ins and abandonments, which increases the animal shelter populations, and means that more dogs and cats are put to sleep. This is absolutely not the answer in California or anywhere else in this country. With each round of amendments in the California assembly this bill grows worse under the influence of animal rights extremists who would like to see an end to all pet ownership. (They believe that we're "enslaving" cats and dogs, and horses and other animals, by keeping them as pets. The only "slave" at my house is me as I wait on my dogs.)

The truth is that in many areas animal shelter populations have been steadily declining since the 1970s. Education about the value of voluntarily spaying and neutering your pet has reached most pet owners, reducing the number of unplanned litters. In many areas dogs are not allowed to roam free as they did when some of us were kids. In the 1960s and '70s it was not unusual for the neighborhood dogs to follow kids around the block when they went to play with neighbors. No more. Dogs are usually kept in fences or in the house now, or there are consequences. This is not true everywhere, but it is increasingly true. This means that even intact dogs have fewer opportunities for romantic liaisons. In some places, there is a shortage of available, desirable puppies. Dogs and puppies are sent from many shelters in the Southern states to the northeast to be adopted. I know this for a fact because I know many of the people involved in transporting these dogs and puppies. In the Southwest, there are an estimated 10,000 puppies brought in illegally from Mexico to be sold at roadside stands. Often in shelters the dogs which are available are pit bull-types or so-called "pit bull mixes" (usually shelter workers don't really know what they are) and the public is afraid to adopt them. The shelter is otherwise filled up with feral kittens — also not very popular for adoption. These hard-to-adopt animals make up a large percentage of the animals which have to be euthanized in this country every year.

So, does it make sense to require mandatory spaying and neutering of the pets of responsible pet owners because there are some irresponsible owners? Or because there are feral cats having kittens? Instead, I think there should be greater efforts to enforce already existing leash laws and to help volunteers who attempt to tackle the feral cat problem with trap/neuter/release programs. Education of pet owners is working for voluntary spaying and neutering. Bolstering already existing programs will help further reduce animal shelter populations and reduce the number of animals which have to be euthanized each year. That's the answer. NOT mandatory spay/neutering.

If you'd like more information about AB1634 you can visit PetPac or the National Animal Interest Alliance.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 3rd, 2007 at 1:12 pm and is filed under For Our Dogs' Sake, General Dogs' Topics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.