Fewer pets killed because of spay, neuter programs

Associated Press

LOS ANGELES

When Stephen Zawistowski got his first dog 50 years ago, she was the only dog in the neighborhood that was spayed.

“She had an incision that must have been a foot long and was sewn up with what looked like piano wire,” says Zawistowski, science adviser for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

It took years of campaigning to change thinking about sterilizing pets, but it has paid off. This year fewer than 4 million unwanted dogs and cats will be euthanized, down from as many as 20 million before 1970.

There are several reasons: Aggressive adopt-a-pet campaigns are carried out every day in cities all over the country and breed rescues save many dogs. But animal experts believe spaying and neutering has played the biggest role in saving so many lives.

Nearly every public shelter, private rescue or animal welfare organization in the country donates money, space or time to low-cost spay and neuter clinics.

Spaying and neutering has become the law in some states, counties and cities. Many states require all shelter animals to be sterilized. Rhode Island requires most cats to be sterilized, and Los Angeles requires most dogs and cats to be spayed or neutered by the time they are 4 months old.

While shelters are on board, the biggest problem has been selling sterilization programs to pet owners.

When pets are sterilized, their reproductive organs are removed so they can no longer breed. Some people consider that unnecessary mutilation of their pets.

And it wasn’t just pet owners who had to be convinced — so did veterinarians, he says.

Medical procedures have caught up in the last half-century and many people changed their thinking.

Aimee Gilbreath, executive director of Found Animals, a Los Angeles-based charity, agrees. “It’s become a tenet of responsible ownership,” she says of spaying and neutering.

In addition to eliminating shelter kills, spaying and neutering can make pets easier to manage, less aggressive and healthier, said Andrew N. Rowan, president and CEO of Humane Society International and chief scientific officer for the Humane Society of the United States.