by Sarah Guy

Created on: November 18, 2008

Three million: that's the low end estimate of how many companion animals are euthanized every year due to animal shelter overcrowding. For an animal lover, that's three million too many. Two of the major sources of this problem are the stray and feral animal population in our country, and the abandonment of pets by individuals who can no longer handle the responsibility of pet ownership. Unfortunately, many loving, responsible pet owners don't realize that they are unwittingly contributing to the problem by failing to have their pet spayed or neutered.

It's understandable why a pet owner might elect not to have their pet spayed or neutered. After all, it's natural to think that your dog or cat is the cutest/friendliest/best dog or cat ever- and to want to gift the world with a litter of little copies. Many pet owners also justify not fixing their animals because they keep their pets indoors. However, no one can guarantee that their animal won't slip out the front door or the back gate- and you never know what animal is going to get in your backyard either. Some friends of ours hadn't fixed their female dog, and an unfixed male got under the fence while she was in the yard. They ended up having to raise and rehome six puppies.

While it's possible for a responsible pet owner to rehome a litter of puppies or kittens, it's not an easy task- and many well meaning people have turned to animal shelters in desperation, adding to the overcrowding in these facilities. And for every cute little offspring of your favorite pet that you rehome, there's one less home to adopt an equally cute, friendly, loyal shelter animal in need of a home.

The importance of spaying and neutering is a cause very close to my heart. We have four shelter cats in my house, and one I rescued from an empty apartment. In the year that we've lived in San Antonio (a city with a exponentially larger stray population than I've ever seen before) not a week goes by that I don't see multiple stray animals wandering the roadside and prowling parking lots. Last September we took in a sick, abandoned rottweiler we found, dehydrated and starving, lying under my car one morning. There wasn't room in any no-kill shelter within an hours drive of the city, and a few days later she had a litter of puppies in our garage, which we raised for two months before finding good homes for them all. Not even two months later, I was stopped in the parking lot of the local Walmart by some young girls. They had found two tiny kittens abandoned in the recycling bin at their school, and their mom wouldn't let them keep the cats. The miniscule male kittens were too young to have been separated from their mother; they tried suckling on each other's bellies for nourishment. We fed them milk replacement formula, weaned them onto dry food, and found them a great home.

Unfortunately, I can't rescue every stray animal in Texas. Nearly every day I see dogs wandering into traffic, see forlorn bundles of fur lying by the side of the road. Feral cat packs wander empty parking lots at night at nearby stripmalls, and I can't take them all in and find them loving homes. What I, or any animal lover, can do is be an advocate for spaying and neutering. This is the best way to attack the stray and feral population problem in our country, because spaying or fixing one animal can prevent literally dozens of unwanted animals from abandonment and euthanasia.

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