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Asking if spaying and neutering is a crucial part of controlling domestic animal overpopulation is a little bit like asking if birth control is crucial to controlling human overpopulation. Of course it is a key method to controlling populations is to control birth rates. To believe otherwise is to ignore the facts of life. It's also a much more humane method than allowing or causing parts of the population to die off.

As with human overpopulation, controlling domestic animal birthrates isn't the only element that needs to be addressed. People seeking an animal companion should be encouraged to adopt perfectly good pets who need a home. They should also be educated in how to be good pet owners and how to properly train their pet. The dark side of pet ownership is abandonment and abuse. There are far too many people who don't realize the responsibility they've taken on, and abandon their former animal friend at the first sign of trouble. There are others who inflict on their pet a life of suffering, and then don't understand when their domestic companion fights back.

That said, spaying and neutering is absolutely necessary for controlling our nation's animal overpopulation problem. If we think that we can keep our nation's domestic animal population under control by adoption and restricted breeding alone, we're sadly mistaken.

Unless they're a registered purebred breeder, pet owners have no right to have unfixed animals. Until the day we invent pet birth control, this is the kindest option for our domestic animal companions. The fact of the matter is that they no longer live in a state of nature they exist in a human created environment. These days, that environment isn't conducive to animals that are seeking mates. If they're largely indoor pets, they'll be pretty frustrated creatures. Even pets who roam the great and small outdoors are better off spayed and neutered. Life isn't easy for a tomcat on the prowl they're likely to live much shorter lives than their neutered brothers.

In closing, spaying and neutering is not only the humane option for our animal companions, it's the necessary one. While there are other avenues of that we need to explore, the simple fact is that reduction of birthrates is necessary to keep a population under control. We recognize this is true for our own population issues we need to acknowledge it's true for domestic animal overpopulation as well.

Learn more about this author, Jen Power.
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