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[Costa Rica trains more veterinarians per capita than any other nation. Many graduates of Costa Rican programs go on to work in the U.S. Although specifically directed at the Costa Rican audience, this talk is really a basic primer on humane animal control for anyone, anywhere.]

By Merritt Clifton, editor, ANIMAL PEOPLE.

Thank you for this opportunity to address you. I am a news reporter. My philosophy, as a reporter, is borrowed from the early 20th century U.S. newspaper baron William Randolph Hearst--who, by the way, was a strong advocate for animals. Hearst stated that the purpose of news reporting is to, "Comfort the afflicted, afflict the comfortable, print the news, and raise hell." My personal specialties are investigative reporting and environmental reporting.

The creed for investigative reporters, otherwise known as muckrakers, is "Follow the money." The creed on the environmental beat, called "the poop beat" in newsrooms, is "Follow your nose."

After muckraking, following the money, and following my nose fulltime on the animal protection beat since 1988 in partnership with ANIMAL PEOPLE publisher Kim Bartlett, it is very clear to me, based on the accumulation of cold hard statistical data, that the most cost-effective approach to dog and cat care and control, the most ecological approach, the approach most effectively addressing public health concerns, and the kindest approach, are all one and the same.

Accordingly, I am here to explain to veterinarians how to make much more money than you have ever dreamed you could earn.

I am also here to explain to taxpayers how to save money.
I am here to explain to environmentalists how to protect endangered species from feral dogs and cats.
I am here to explain to public health officials how to protect your citizens from zoonotic disease.
I am here to endorse the intuition of people who love animals that an emphasis on saving lives and treating each animal with respect and kindness is the approach that will over time bring you the greatest amount of community approval and cooperation, and will bring the greatest public contributions to animal welfare charities.

Finally, I am here to encourage you to realize that the Latin American humane community and veterinary community already have some of the very best ideas about dog and cat care and control that we have encountered anywhere in the world, and have already accomplished some enormously impressive results in almost eradicating canine rabies in some regions through high-volume free vaccination. These successful anti-rabies projects can become the models for successful efforts to prevent dog and cat overpopulation.

Unfortunately, some cities and some nations still resort to poisoning dogs and cats in the streets. This is completely ineffective in preventing overpopulation and is environmentally very dangerous, since endangered predators and scavengers may also ingest the poison--and occasionally, children do.

Some places still shoot dogs and cats. Investigating the circumstances, ANIMAL PEOPLE has discovered that usually governments send troops out to shoot dogs in times of civil unrest, when the presence of the dogs provides a pretext for putting armed men on the streets, whose real purpose is intimidating demonstrators. The Chinese describe this as "Killing the dog to scare the monkey."

We have also seen recent video of municipal workers in rural Brazil gassing homeless dogs and cats with unfiltered and uncooled car exhaust, a procedure which has been outlawed in most of North America and Europe for 20 to 30 years.

In addition, we have recently heard that one of the biggest cities in Brazil continues to kill animals with a decompression chamber. That appallingly cruel killing method has been outlawed almost everywhere in the world for just as long.

We have heard rumors, still unconfirmed, that homeless dogs and cats are still electrocuted in parts of Latin America. The Royal SPCA of Great Britain experimented with electrocuting animals from approximately 1885 until about 1928, before concluding that it could never be considered acceptably humane by British standards. They then exported the Royal SPCA electrocution machines to India, where the last of them were dismantled in 1997, and Pakistan, where one may still be in use.

I believe all of us here would agree that cruelty is cruelty, no matter where it occurs, and there is no more excuse for cruelty in a poor nation than in a rich one. A wealthy nation has no moral authority to export cruelty to the poor; neither should the poor be coerced or fooled into accepting cruel methods of dealing with either animals or people when a rich nation asserts that this should be done.

It is especially shocking that cruel killing of dogs and cats continues in Latin America when much of Brazil, much of Argentina, Uroguay, and Costa Rica have all virtually eliminated rabies as a public health threat, without resorting to massacres of street dogs and cats as routine public policy.

Asia, eastern Europe, and Africa are all a long way behind the accomplishments of much of Latin America in this regard. The knowledge exists within Latin America, if it is used, to completely eradicate rabies from Central America, South America, and the Caribbean, and to prevent all of the other problems associated with dog-and-cat overpopulation, if the lessons from these successful anti-rabies campaigns can be broadly applied.
Just before the October 2001 edition of ANIMAL PEOPLE went to press, a few days before our departure to come here, we learned--and reported--that a 9-year-old boy had apparently died from rabies on September 29 at the Children's Hospital here in San Jose.

Whether or not further testing confirms that rabies was the cause, and whether or not dogs had anything to do with it, the mere public perception that a child has died from rabies which might have come from a dog bite has the potential to present a real challenge to the idea advocated by Dr. Vicente and Christine Crawford here that the existence of conventional dog and cat population control departments with conventional U.S.-style animal shelters increases pet abandonment and killing, and postpones the inevitable need to provide free vaccination and sterilization to feral animals and pets of the poor.

Just over a year ago, Dr. Vicente explained to those of us who attended the No-Kill Conference in Tucson, Arizona, that "Building shelters is a diversion of resources that a poor nation cannot afford."

Dr. Vicente was right. Building the kind of multi-billion-dollar animal care and control facilities that the U.S. and some other nations have is a diversion of resources that a poor nation cannot afford--and neither can the U.S.

Common perception around the world, promoted by some public officials and representatives of humane societies who really ought to know better than to repeat such rot, is that the U.S. has almost completely eliminated rabies in dogs and cats through:

1) Exterminating stray dogs, to the extent that free-roaming dogs are scarcely seen any more in much of the country;
2) Exterminating as many feral cats as animal control departments can capture; and
3) Enforcing laws requiring that all pet dogs must be vaccinated.

This is the actual current data on compliance with the dog licensing laws, which are the enforcement mechanism for the legal vaccination requirements:

Type of regulation West Midwest Northeast South
Dog licence, intact: $28.21 $11.72 $ 9.72 $17.86
Dog license, altered: $10.50 $ 4.70 $ 4.58 $ 5.93
Dog licensing compliance: 24% 28% 32% 10%
(28% national average)

The U.S. licensing fees for sterilized dogs are on average close to the minimum legal wage for one hour. For dogs who remain capable of breeding, the license fees are close to the regionally adjusted average wage of U.S. workers.

In other words, dog licensing is affordable for almost any employed person.

Yet the national rate of compliance with dog licensing is only 28%.

In fact, more than 70% of U.S. dogs and owned cats are vaccinated against rabies. In addition, nearly 70% of the owned dogs are sterilized, as are more than 85% of the owned cats. It must be clearly understood, however, that these animals are not vaccinated and sterilized because the law requires it. Laws that are obeyed by barely one person in four have hardly any discernible effect at all. Rather, U.S. pet dogs and cats are vaccinated and sterilized because people who keep pet dogs and cats have been convinced by veterinarians they know and trust, by humane organizations, and by their friends and neighbors, that vaccinating and sterilizing pets is the socially responsible and considerate thing to do--especially if a person respects the life and health of the pet.

Our progress has been a triumph of advertising, in other words, rather than of coercion.

The focus of the U.S. animal care and control strategy on exterminating homeless dogs and cats, meanwhile, has been an enormous and very costly failure, costing us approximately $600 million per year at present just in tax-funded expenditure, and close to $2 billion a year when the diversion of charitable contributions to capturing and disposing of homeless dogs and cats is factored in.

In truth, the U.S.--which was never very tolerant of dogs at large--really only began to reduce the numbers of dogs and feral cats who were running at large after abandoning almost a century of concerted effort to kill homeless dogs and cats by any means possible, and turning instead to high-volume low-cost and free sterilization.

It is also a matter of record--and I will give you the hard statistics in a moment--that canine rabies was eliminated in the U.S. while the numbers of free-roaming dogs and cats were still very close to an all-time high, and were still several years from beginning the rapid drop that we have seen over the past few decades.

There will always be those who think killing animals is cheaper than sterilizing animals, and therefore more appropriate for developing nations. On a 1-to-1 basis, if you only consider the cost of killing one animal versus the cost of sterilizing one animal, they will be right--but killing animals just creates habitat vacancies, which enables the survivors to successfully raise more puppies and kittens.

Accordingly, one must look at the big picture: not just the cost per animal handled, but also at the possible gain to be had if that animal is never born.

Succinctly put, killing cats, dogs, and other mammals in a futile attempt to achieve permanent population reduction is an approach repeatedly attempted by just about every government of every nation on every continent, sometimes on a continuous basis since the Middle Ages, when cat pogroms helped to accelerate the spread of the black rats whose fleas carried bubonic plague. Even after the Black Death killed a third of the human population of Europe, the fallacy of attempting to exterminate cats was not understood, and the civic officials of London repeated the same mistake about 300 years later.

In fact, no extermination program directed at any fast-breeding mammal species such as dogs, cats, coyotes, deer, rabbits, pigs, rats or mice has ever achieved more than short-term results in a mainland habitat.

And nowhere did it fail more obviously than in the United States.
Two ecological laws work against successful extermination:

1) Nature abhors a void. Open a habitat niche by exterminating the occupants, and something will promptly fill it.

2) Mammals raise litters of size varying according to food availability. This was one of our major evolutionary advantages over the dinosaurs and birds, whose egg clutch size was and is more-or-less fixed at a relatively low number. Among mammals, lowering food competition accelerates the fecundity of the surviving population. Larger litters are born; more of each litter survive. Birds which might compete with some of the mammals for the habitat simply cannot reproduce as rapidly to fill a void--so what happens is that exterminating the mammals usually just results in proliferation of their major prey species, such as mice and rats, followed by reoccupation of the habitat by more of the same species of mammalian predators who were just exterminated, moving in from other areas.

The New York City animal control statistics offer an excellent longterm illustration. From 1895, when records first were kept, until 1962, no U.S. city more vigorously exterminated stray dogs and cats. Yet the number of dogs and cats killed rose every year, topping 100,000 for the first time in 1908 (after approximately 75 years of killing strays and 13 years of record-keeping). The New York City numbers continued to rise each and every year, peaking at 250,000 in 1962 and remaining at that level until 1966.

Every year, no matter how many animals were killed the year before, more were found at large to kill. San Francisco also began keeping records of animal control killing in 1895, and saw the same trend. Record-keeping started much later in most other cities, but not one U.S. city of any size ever achieved a lasting downward trend in dog and cat killing or in stray dog and cat pickups until more than 30 years after the last major U.S. outbreak of canine rabies, which occurred in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

In 1957, Friends of Animals started the first low-cost dog and cat sterilization project in the U.S. in the New York City area. After 10 years of effort, it was fixing enough animals per year to stop the growth of the stray population, and started branch programs in other parts of the country. I believe Dr. Gissendammer here became involved in that effort in the 1970s or early 1980s.

Other organizations including the American SPCA, Fund for Animals, and North Shore Animal League America meanwhile also began doing high-volume sterilization surgery in and around New York City.
Thus, from 1967 through 1995 the number of strays killed in New York City dropped every year, hitting a low of 40,000.

Since 1995 the total has fluctuated between 40,000 and 45,000, and the New York City ratio of animals killed to human population has been the second lowest in the U.S., at about 5.8 per 1,000 people.

The San Francisco SPCA began doing high-volume low-cost and free sterilization in 1984, and has achieved even more impressive results. The San Francisco Department of Animal Care and Control and San Francisco SPCA now kill only 2.6 animals per 1,000 human residents, which is by far the lowest rate of dog and cat killing recorded in North America.

San Antonio, just 10% of the size of New York City, meanwhile had no low-cost spay/neuter program until 1998. In recent years San Antonio has killed 40,000 stray dogs and cats per year, the same as New York City--and the per capita rate of killing in San Antonio has nonetheless never been lower.

Meanwhile, the few parts of the U.S. which still have occasional canine rabies outbreaks, like Texas, South Carolina, and Alabama, often have animal control intake and killing rates of approximately four times the U.S. norm of about 16 dogs and cats killed per 1,000 human residents.

Hidalgo County, Texas, which has some of the most militant organized veterinary opposition to low-cost and free dog and cat sterilization in the U.S., kills 64 dogs and cats per 1,000 human residents. Kershaw County, South Carolina, kills 73 dogs and cats per 1,000 human residents, and the city of Mobile, Alabama, kills 70 dogs and cats per 1,000 human residents.

In each of these very backward places, the official emphasis is still upon killing instead of sterilization, because the city officials persist in the erroneous belief that killing is cheaper.

The most important lesson here is that despite the obvious fact that it is less expensive to kill any one animal than to vaccinate and sterilize the animal, you can kill animals to infinity and not get rid of large free-roaming populations.

Street dog and feral cat populations can be eliminated--by sterilizing them, and allowing them to hold their habitat with diminished reproductive capacity while addressing the conditions that permit them to proliferate. In the long run, the only really effective way to eliminate street dogs is to eliminate their food sources by improving public sanitation, introducing refrigeration, and getting rid of uncovered trash dumps.

As long as you have rats, open-air disposal of either animal or human feces, decomposing animal carcasses in the streets, and large amounts of easily accessible food waste, you will have street dogs, because you will be maintaining the conditions which are conducive to their reproduction.

Almost the same observations pertain to cats. In regions with abundant street dogs, feral cats tend to be few. They live on rooftops and are mostly nocturnal, because dogs outcompete them for the ground-level daytime food sources--and dogs also control the feral cat population by killing cats, especially kittens.

When you eliminate street dogs, however, cats claim the habitat. In warm climates, cats have approximately twice the reproductive capacity of dogs. If you think you have a lot of dogs to deal with now, just wait and see what happens should you manage to reduce the dog numbers substantially without doing anything to eliminate the food sources and slow the fecuncity of cats.

As recently as 1960, 90% of the animals handled by U.S. animal care and control departments were dogs. Free-roaming dogs were still commonly seen all over the U.S. until the mid-1980s, and feral cats were still relatively few. No one even counted them. In some states, like Connecticut, cats were considered to be so unproblematic that animal control departments did not even have a mandate to collect cats until 1991.

As dog overpopulation and free-roaming dogs were eliminated, however, we found out about cats the hard way. By 1985, the numbers of dogs coming into U.S. shelters had stablized, showing no real increase in about five years--but cats now made up half the incoming volume of animals. By 1995, the number of dogs coming into U.S. shelters was less half of what it had been in 1985. Two-thirds to three-quarters of the total numbers of animals received and animals killed were cats.

Between 1985 and today, the total number of dogs and cats killed in U.S. animal shelters has declined from 17.8 million to just 4.6 million, but if we were only dealing with dogs, pet overpopulation would be almost history. Most of the dogs killed in the U.S. these days are seriously ill, seriously injured, or are judged to be too dangerous to adopt out to a new home. Most of the cats, on the other hand, are quite healthy, and are killed only because no one wants them.

The numbers would be even more overwhelming except that removing free-roaming dogs from U.S. streets also allowed the proliferation of coyotes. Recent studies of urban coyote feeding habits by researchers at San Diego State University in California and Arizona State University in Tucson discovered that cats make up about one fifth of the coyotes' diet.

I call coyotes "nature's animal control officers." Having seen how swifly coyotes dispatch the cats they eat, I guarantee that a cat killed by a coyote suffers far less than a cat caught in a trap, kept in a cage in terrified proximity to barking dogs for several days in case someone comes to claim the cat as a missing pet, and is finally killed either by lethal injection or in a gas chamber.

Coyotes also take over some of the cats' prey base of rats, mice, rabbits, other small mammals, and birds who have already been weakened by disease or by injury, such as intoxication by pesticides or a collision with a window or a vehicle--and let me take this opportunity right here and now to state that the notion of cats as a major predator of healthy birds and important factor in the disappearance of neotropical migratory songbirds is a pernicious lie, propagated by people and organizations who are unwilling to confront the realities of destruction of bird breeding habitat.

Perhaps the best-known study of cat predation, and the study most often cited out of context by people who want to blame cats for vanishing birds, was published by the British-based Mammal Society in February 1998. To produce that survey, 800 British cat owners recorded their cats' kills for six months--for roughly 144,000 cat-days of activity.

Among all those cats, the most active killer was Missy, with 125 kills in 180 days, including 28 birds. Almost all the rest were mice, voles, and other small rodents. The runner-up was Kipper, with 82 kills in 180 days, including six birds. That's 34 birds in 360 cat-days, by the most predatory cats (by far) among the entire sample base. Those most skilled of feline killers managed to kill birds at a rate amounting to just 16% of their total prey, and succeeded in killing a bird on only 9.4% of the days they hunted.

Even at that, cats are rarely the primary cause of the death of the birds they catch. Instead, they pick off the sick, the injured, and the elderly; sometimes the young of ground-nesting speices.

The importance of disease as a causal factor in "cat kills" of birds has only just begun to be recognized. A landmark in that regard was published in the June 3, 2000 edition of The Economist by researchers Anders Moller and Johannes Erritzoe of the Universite Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris. After examining the spleens of 500 birds who had been killed by cats, were killed in collisions with windows, or were hit by cars, they reported in that the spleens of the birds killed by cats were a third smaller on average, in 16 of 18 species, than in the birds killed in accidents.

In part this was because 70% of the cat-killed birds were juveniles; only half of the others were. But a more important factor, they suggested, was that "Birds succumbing to lots of infections, or inundated with energy-sapping parasites, have smaller spleens than healthy birds."

In short, the interactions of cats and birds are very, very complex, and deserve much more serious study, not least because the outdoor free-roaming cat population--contrary to what many bird-lovers believe--is now declining even faster than neotropical migratory songbirds are, and has been for approximately a decade. When free-roaming cat populations decline, coyotes take over some of their prey sources. Hawks and owls tend to take the rest. But hawks and owls breed relatively slowly, producing a maximum of two young per pair per year and usually fewer. If you simply kill cats, instead of making more prey available to avian predators, you create a habitat void which lures in more cats. If instead you sterilize cats, their numbers decline over time more-or-less in step with the reproductive capacity of hawks and owls to prevent a void, and then the replacement of cats as a non-native predator with native bird species can be successful.

Returning to the subject of rabies, the accomplishments of Latin American veterinarians and humane groups, and the possibilities for the future, most of you probably know that the World Health Organization pronounced Costa Rica free of canine rabies in 1980. This was a triumph with few precedents in the world at that time.

Unfortunately it was not followed up with a sustained vaccination program. Christine Crawford told me a few days ago that according to current Veterinary Licensing Board data, only 3% of the dogs in Costa Rica are now vaccinated against rabies.

This is very disappointing, and needs to be rectified. As Crawford pointed out, "A rabies outbreak would not only create a public health crisis, but would destroy the market for pets and veterinary care."

According to Miguel Escobar, M.D., associate director of Merial Inc., which is the world's largest manufacturer of anti-rabies vaccines, "In 1990 there were 16,464 reported cases of canine rabies in Latin America. In 1998 that was reduced to 2,608. Human rabies cases were reduced from 252 to 74."

Most of the rabies case reduction was in Buenos Aires, Lima, and Sao Paolo, all of which completely eliminated rabies by vaccinating from 60% to 80% of their estimated dog populations during a series of three-month campaigns which I believe were directed by Oscar Pedro Larghi, M.D., of Argentina.

The arrival of injectible sterilization drugs capable of permanently altering dogs and cats will very soon create the opportunity to combat dog and cat overpopulation in exactly the same manner. The anti-rabies vaccination campaign models developed in Latin America will be transferable to dog and cat sterilization--and moreover, the same injections should be able to carry the anti-rabies vaccine and the sterilization drugs. Therefore, when dealing with street dogs and feral cats, whose average life expectancy is about the same as the estimated three-year efficacy of modern anti-rabies vaccines, one injection may be sufficient to prevent most of the problems which might result from the animal running at large, without doing any harm to the health and well-being of the animal, and without losing the positive contribution of the animal to protecting public health by consuming refuse and rodents.

I believe Esther Mechler of Spay/USA will tell you more later about the progress that has been achieved recently toward developing injectible sterilants for dogs and cats and making them widely available. Much current technical information about these developments is available at the ANIMAL PEOPLE web site, , and will pop up if you go there and search on the terms "injectible sterilant" and "immunocontraceptive."

In addition, an organization called The Alliance for Contraception in Cats and Dogs is sponsoring an International Symposium on Non-Surgical Contraceptive Methods for Pet Population Control on April 19-21, 2002, in Atlanta. You can get the conference information from Henry Baker, Ph.D., at .

The importance of the coming availability of injectible sterilization methods is not that it will ever completely replace surgical sterilization of dogs and cats who are kept as pets. Surgical sterilization may continue to be the preference of many petkeepers because of the advantages of surgical methods in altering undesirable animal behavior, such as urine spraying to mark territory, roaming, and becoming aggressive, as well as in preventing fecundity, and in preventing gonadal cancers that often develop in unaltered older pets.
Injectible sterilization is important primarily as a humane method of controlling and reducing populations of street dogs and feral cats, including the quasi-pets of the very poor, who may not actually live indoors with the people but whose presence is often welcome.

Surgery works as a dog and cat population control method, having hugely reduced unwanted animal births and animal control killing wherever it has been made affordable. But surgery still takes more veterinary time, training, and equipment than many communities have to offer.

Affluent societies can find the resources to control animal populations through surgery, with sufficient persuasion, but animal birth control elsewhere depends upon attracting outside help--which is not always available or dependable, whether in the more backward rural districts of the U.S. or in the underdeveloped nations of Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

Even if most of the people in poor communities accept the value of animal birth control, which survey data from both the U.S. and Asia indicates that they do, neither poor people nor their public institutions can easily find the money to invest in it.

Policy-makers might understand that sterilizing animals is cheaper and more effective in the long run than simply killing strays and ferals, but economic and political reality may preclude long-term thinking when 14 children have already been bitten by one mad dog, there isn't a dose of post-rabies exposure vaccine within hundreds of miles, and a mob is forming in the street to kill suspect animals and any humans who get in their way.

This occurred in May 2000 in Flores, Indonesia, and in June 1999 in Kabwe, Zambia. It is a daily reality in parts of India, where even though rabies vaccines are widely available, deployment is impeded by cost, lack of refrigeration, and corruption, which sometimes prevents poor people from obtaining the supposedly free vaccinations administered by government clinics. The vaccines are instead diverted to fee-charging private clinics, and poor people die in consequence.

The same problems may occur in parts of Latin America, even though we do not have the details.

Contraceptive injectiions will be much less expensive than surgery. They will present much less risk of infection at clinics obliged to operate without refrigeration, running water, or electricity. As mentioned, they can be given along with anti-rabies vaccination. Name any community anywhere in the underdeveloped world, and the cost of giving injections to sterilize and vaccinate all of the dogs and cats now running at large will almost certainly be less than the cost of improving and expanding their animal care and control shelters and nonprofit surgical sterilization clinics to meet U.S. and European standards--which, in my opinion, are themselves seriously deficient.

Upgrading animal care facilities in the underdeveloped world needs to be done too, and in a few minutes I will share some ideas about how to do that while avoiding the horrible mistakes that have been made throughout the U.S. and Canada.

However, reducing the numbers of free-roaming dogs and cats and eliminating rabies outbreaks must come first. Otherwise, the animal shelters and nonprofit clinics will never catch up to the ever-expanding need for their services.

Sterilizing enough feral dogs and cats to visibly and permanently reduce the numbers at large is inherently difficult using surgery because sterilization--by any method --does not begin to bring a population decline until approximately 70% of the breeding population are fixed.

Up to that point, reducing the number of litters born tends to enhance the survival rate of the rest. Pregnant and nursing mothers have less competition, so find more prey and take fewer chances in hunting. Better-nourished puppies and kittens are less vulnerable to disease and--because they are nursed longer and leave their mothers later--are less vulnerable to predation.

Until 70% of a population of street dogs and/or feral cats are altered, sterilizing some but not all can actually bring a reproductive surge, to the frequent dismay of individual rescuers and small humane societies who think they can make a difference by fixing one or two at a time as funds allow.

Failure to anticipate population surges caused by eliminating causes of feral dog and cat mortality can completely undo neuter/vaccinate/return projects, especially if humane organizations have promised more immediate population reduction than can be delivered. We have seen this happen over and over, around the world, when surgical sterilization projects fail to reach 70% of the dog or cat population in the target area before the arrival of the next breeding season, and a dog or cat population surge results instead of a reduction.

The advent of contraceptive vaccination, especially via bait-ball delivery, should eliminate the surge effect by enabling rescuers to reach the 70% target relatively quickly and inexpensively.

Coincidentally, 70% is also the level of vaccination coverage required to eliminate rabies within an animal population. At 70% vaccination, the virus tends to die with infected animals rather than spreading rapidly enough to new hosts to survive.

Combining species-specific vaccinations to achieve both immunocontraceptive sterilization and rabies protection with a single baited dose is accordingly a Holy Grail for some researchers--which appears to be within reach. Baited doses can be administered without even having to capture the target animal, and if the immunocontraceptive vaccine and anti-rabies vaccine are genetically engineered to affect only the target species, any risk resulting from the wrong kind of animal consuming the bait can be avoided.

As distributing species-specific immunocontraceptive and anti-rabies vaccine baits would be as simple as distributing poison, any animal control department could do it, under proper veterinary supervision.

Incidentally, while immunocontraceptives for dogs and cats are still in the regulatory approval process in the U.S. and some other nations, species-specific oral rabies vaccination has already existed for approximately 25 years. Beginning in 1976, it was deployed with spectacular success to eliminating canine rabies from western Europe, by eradicating the reservoirs of rabies within wild foxes. Since 1991 it has also been used to halt rabies outbreaks among foxes, coyotes, and raccoons in parts of the U.S. and Canada. Oral vaccination has the potential to eradicate rabies altogether, which not only kills as many as 40,000 humans per year in Asia and Africa, but is also responsible for the prejudice against dogs prevailing in much of the world, leading to brutal episodic purges of street dogs, and stimulating some human consumption of dogs, whose meat is wrongly believed in some parts of Asia to confer immunity to rabies.

The introduction of oral rabies vaccination to the U.S. was unfortunately delayed for at least six years by legal actions brought by the National Wildlife Federation and Foundation for Economic Trends. Each professed concern that oral rabies vaccines are genetically engineered. But the National Wildlife Federation is the national umbrella for 48 state hunting clubs, and may actually have been more concerned that vaccinating wildlife against rabies would eliminate a common pretext for recreational hunting and trapping.

Immunosterilization of wildlife even more directly threatens hunting and trapping, because this technique could be used to prevent wild animal populations from producing what wildlife managers term a "huntable surplus," who may become a public nuisance if they are not killed. For this reason, pro-hunting organizations won passage of a law against wildlife contraception in the state of Illinois, and have fought wildlife contraception programs in many other states.

Similar opposition to immunocontraceptive methods may be expected in Latin America. We can expect a powerful coalition of conservative elements to unite against immunosterilization of street dogs and feral cats, including hunters, opponents of genetic engineering, antivivisectionists opposed to the animal experimentation done to develop immunosterilants, religious leaders concerned about the possible use of injectible sterilants on people, and conservation biologists who fear that vaccines deployed to sterilize dogs and cats might also inhibit the reproduction of endangered wild canine and feline species.

The humane, veterinary, and public health communities could combine to sway the debate in favor of immunosterilization, to the enormous longterm benefit of all concerned despite the anxieties of the conservative elements. Forming such an alliance, however, will require a radical break from the doctrinaire positions against animal research and biotechnology favored by the anti-vivisection wing of the animal rights movement.

Animal advocates who endorse the use of immunocontraception to save millions of animal lives will have to accept that it is a technique made accessible through genetic engineering and that some animal experimentation is inevitable to win regulatory approval for using it. This does not mean that anyone has to approve of "all" animal research or "all" genetic engineering. It does require, however, that the ends and the means must be weighed against each other in a moral cost/benefit analysis, and that absolutist positions must yield to compromise if immunocontraception is to become available.

For the humane community, this is a significant dilemma to be confronted.
It surfaced at the Spay/USA conference in July 2000, where Esther Mechler brought together several of the leading immunosterilant researchers to describe their progress to the humane community.

One of those researchers was Julie Levy, DVM, of Gainesville, Florida, who also happens to be the founder of Project Catnip, one of the most successful nonprofit surgical sterilization projects in the U.S. working to reduce the population of feral cats.

Dr. Levy explained that she had not previously told the humane community about her immunosterilant research because she expected a hostile reception. Dr. Levy explained her reluctant acceptance that developing and winning regulatory approval of immunosterilants requires the ethically difficult sacrifices of the lives of some animals in testing--which may prevent the births and population control killings of millions. She asked the audience to appreciate her decision to put preventing suffering ahead of maintaining personal purity. Many humane workers in the audience might have recognized in Julie's position a mirror of the rationale that animal shelter workers use for killing healthy animals at conventional American animal control agencies and humane societies because there are not enough homes to adopt them.

Shelter workers, however, have for too long killed animals with little hope of accomplishing more by it than emptying cages so that more can be captured and held for killing. Immunosterilization promises to end that cycle.

You veterinarians in the audience have been waiting patiently for quite a long time now for me to get to the part about how assisting government animal control departments and nonprofit agencies to sterilize and vaccinate street dogs and feral cats and pets of the poor can end up making you rich.

Hard data from the U.S., Europe, and Japan all demonstrates that reducing the abundance of dogs and cats translates into substantially increasing veterinary incomes--because the amount of veterinary care invested in each animal rapidly rises when animals are scarcer, harder to replace, more accepted within homes, more emotionally bonded with families, and live for much longer. The discount or subsidy invested in sterilizing and vaccinating an owned dog or cat comes back many times over in the fees veterinary care rendered after the animal reaches nine to ten years of age.

This is somewhat recognized in the veterinary community--but how does the investment in sterilizing street dogs and feral cats come back in veterinary profits?

Apart from the public health benefits and ecological benefits of sterilizing and va

About Jburger Real Name: JAMES BURGER Member Since: March 14, 2006 Last Signed In: September 04, 2008 Profile Views: 3701 Blog Views: 9711 View Profile Send a Message Send To A Friend Sign Guestbook Add as a Friend Previous Posts New animal control director has little experience, lots of enthusiasm Animal hoarding Name change for same-sex spouses Maggard brings "Ruth Ann" to county budget hearings Ann Barnett: civil marriages won't return. Will county services suffer under new budget? Dead pets, in bulk. Gay marriage: the videos Suit and tie tussle Sheriff cuts "drive home" patrol cars Archives July 06 August 06 September 06 October 06 November 06 December 06 January 07 February 07 March 07 April 07 May 07 June 07 July 07 August 07 September 07 October 07 November 07 December 07 January 08 February 08 March 08 April 08 May 08 June 08 July 08 August 08 September 08 Subscribe! RSS 2.0 How does this work? Share!

Jburger - > Quirks of the County -> Big meet — animal commission and mandatory spay neuter

Big meet — animal commission and mandatory spay neuter COMMAGENDA.doc REPORT.doc The Kern County Animal Control Commission must take action, during its Wednesday meeting, to send something containing a mandatory spay and neuter plan to Kern County supervisors. But what staff have added — at the commission's direction — are a wide range of optional plans and enforcement otions that all would help combat Kern County's high shelter kill rates. The meeting starts at 6 p.m. Wednesday (May 21) on the first floor of 2700 M Street in Bakersfield. It should be fun. Leave Comment Subscribe to comments Posted in these Groups: Topics: posted by Jburger on Friday, May 16, 2008 at 03:36 PM Report a Violation Viewed 370 times 37 comments from 13 users <Reverse Sort Order> 1 posted by georgieboy on May 22, 2008 at 05:54 AM 1,419 killed in April 2008!  The 'good' christians in this county turn away from me when I try to speak to them about this issue.  Shame on this county. georgieboy   Report Violation posted by KeepTrying on May 22, 2008 at 07:07 AM Georgieboy Shame on the 1,419 irresponsible pet owners that dumped their animals into the lap of the County.  We live in a throwaway society.  I understand that you are angry about the numbers of animals that are killed each month in Kern County.   I too am angry with the lazy and uninformed that refuse to get their animals spayed or neutered.  Please bear in mind that County Animal Control does not breed these animals it is the irresponsible pet owners that have created this crisis. KeepTrying Report Violation posted by Muttluvn on May 22, 2008 at 09:39 AM Why do I feel like people are always trying to make me feel guilty.  Always with the blame on the citizens of Kern County for overpopulation.  When it is not only the citizens but also the shelters here in Kern County.  Do you know how many people have called me over the years and that have feral cats running all over the place or they have a mommy cat and kittens that showed up on their door and they cannot find a shelter to take them in.  Every shelter...SPCA, Cat People, County Shelter, etc. say they are to full.  That should not be.  They should never turn any animals away. Because those animals they turn away continue to breed and spread disease.  These people that call me even say they would trap them and spay and neuter.  But these people get discouraged because it is a never ending battle and expensive.  THEY NEED HELP!!!! But there is none. Our shelters need different methods of just collecting animals and hoping someone will come down and rescue them. And if those animals are not rescued they get killed to make more space.  They need more voucher  programs and low cost or no cost clinics.  ALSO they need foster programs to take the pressure off the shelter.  That way the animals are getting attention until they find a home. And the shelters need to take advantage of the FREE labor of VOLUNTEER work.  No KILL shelters WORK!!! There are many other counties  that are very successful. Just a few are Tompkins County, NY. They have saved 90% of all impounded dogs and cats at its open-door animal control shelter since 2001. After having NO KILL programs in place for just two years, Philadelphia has witnessed a dramatic turnaround. In 2004, the city killed 90% of 30,000 animals received by animal control. In 2006, nearly 50% of the animals entering animal control were saved, and during the first quarter of this year 71% of cats and 60% of dogs were saved. And there are several more successful NO KILL shelters I could list. STOP ONLY BLAMING THE PUBLIC....LETS TAKE A GOOD LOOK AT WHAT THE SHELTERS IN OUR COUNTY ARE DOING TO TRY TO SOLVE THIS PROBLEM. Mandatory Spay and neuter is not going to change the high cost of sterilizing pets.  Low cost are no cost will make a difference. Report Violation posted by KeepTrying on May 22, 2008 at 09:58 AM pup You are an angry soul!   Keep your fire burning.   I hope that you are working for a dog rescue or somehow volunteering at an animal shelter while all of this goes on.  No kill is  a wonderful option - but where do you recommend storing all of these beautiful creatures while more and more are dumped everyday.  U.C. Davis just bashed KCAC for putting too many in a kennel.  Sadly -  more and more animals arrive at KCAC everyday.    Again, Kern County Animal Control does not breed the creatures that overfill the shelter  -   IT IS THE IRRESPONSIBLE, LAZY AND UNINFORMED PET OWNERS THAT CREATE AND PERPETUATE THE CRISIS OF ANIMAL OVERPOPULATION AND EUTHANASIA IN KERN COUNTY. KeepTrying Report Violation posted by Muttluvn on May 22, 2008 at 12:24 PM Other counties are doing it.... why can't we? I understand there are irresponsible, lazy and uninformed pet owners out there. SO  why do you think this mandatory law is going to change them? MSN is not going to change the high prices of altering so it is more affordable for the general public. This will cause more harm than good. But its our responsibility as a whole to try to fix this problem, not just one party.  There are wonderful examples of NO Kill. No Kill doesn't mean simply not killing the animals that are coming into shelters. There are many helpful tools that work together to make it work!  Our County should give it a try.  Try going to www.nokilladvocacycenter.org  and buy a copy of Nathan Winograd book "Redemtion". Report Violation posted by KeepTrying on May 22, 2008 at 03:12 PM pup Just last year there was a rabid bat   - yes, a bat with rabies - was found in a local shoe store.    Rabies exists in Kern County - I am glad it is not rampant.   I make certain to have my dogs vaccinated against rabies and license them as the law requires.  First and foremost the Animal Control Commission unanimously voted AGAINST doing nothing!  There's a step in the right direction! My understanding from the ACC meeting was that the commission recommended enforcement of licensing with 10% percent of every licensing dollar dedicated to a low cost spay neuter fund for vouchers or clinics.  Additionally, I understood that the ACC recommended PEET teams to canvass neighborhoods for enforcement and education.  Finally, the  ACC recommended the development of a breeders permit program.   The parting of the ways came when the vote came to Mandating spay and neuter.   Two commissioners voted for MSN and two voted against it.     However,  the ACC has firm recommendations for action concerning pet overpopulation to present to the Board of Supervisors.   There is hope in sight. Pup do not let your anger over this situation blind you to the progress that was made last night at the meeting.   AT LEAST THE ACC AGREED ON POINTS TO PRESENT TO THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS.      Report Violation posted by KeepTrying on May 22, 2008 at 07:40 PM Come on Pup crunch the numbers with me.   It is estimated that there are over 150,000 dogs in Kern County  - since we are euthanizing over 1,000 per month and there is still no shortage of dogs in Kern County  I would venture to say that the number of dogs in Kern County is dramatically higher than the estimate.  Anyone who has volunteered one day in rescue or at a shelter knows that the majority of animals that arrive at a shelter are intact.   So let's say for the sake of conversation that we as a County licensed 1000 animals per month instead of euthanizing 1000 per month.   Intact animals currently generate $60.00 per year - at a rate of 10% per animal licensed that would generate $6,000.00 per month for spay/neuter and $54,000.00 per month for the County.  If we used the $6,000.00 in conjunction with HOPE for instance we as a County could get 100 animals or more spayed/neutered per month.  If you remember - at the ACC meeting it was announced that currently less than 10% of all the dogs in Kern County are licensed.  At the prior ACC meeting (April 2008) discussion was held concerning the fact that less than $400,000 in licensing fees were collected for all of fiscal year 2006 to 2007.  Even at 10% of $400,000    -  $40,000 in conjunction with HOPE or low cost clinics through the SPCA/County  venture would certainly get quite a few animals out of the breeding chain. If we truly enforce the existing laws -  progress can be made by using the licensing fees to help pay for spaying and neutering. I know it is hard to be hopeful in this situation - it has been a burden on the responsible for far too long.  Don't let your cynicism blind you - if we all push for change  - well -  remember the story of  "The Little Engine That Could".    WE CAN! Report Violation posted by KeepTrying on May 23, 2008 at 12:20 AM Hey Pup  now you are getting it.   Exactly!  Why hasn't licensing been enforced ?- it is a goldmine, it will reduce the number of intact animals which will in turn reduce the number of animals showing up at the shelters.   Better yet, enforced licensing pays for itself.   Enforcement of licensing laws is the most equitable and least offensive method of controlling the pet overpopulation crisis.  Those people that choose to keep their animals intact pay the highest licensing fees.  Those people that choose to spay and neuter are rewarded with lower licensing fees.  Regardless - all pet owners pay to support the shelter, support low cost spay/neuter programs and improve the health of the community.  Licensing also helps return pets to owners when tags are worn by the animals.  Animal Control will even tell you that they will try to directly return loose animals that are wearing tags. WOW!  Talk about a proactive program - sounds great to me.  MSN is NOT the magic bullet that you profess it to be    IT IS THE LOW COST SPAY/NEUTER OPTIONS THAT ARE PUT INTO PLACE TO ASSIST  THAT MAKE THE DIFFERENCE.  ASK THE PEOPLE OF SAN MATEO.  THE MOST EFFECTIVE PART OF THEIR MSN IS THE LOW COST SPAY  NEUTER PROGRAM.     Report Violation posted by Jburger on May 23, 2008 at 07:36 AM KeepTrying, I have a question about your math. Please bear with me. I think you may have the makings of an interesting conversation here. The shelter euthanizes (roughly) 1,000 animals a month, taking them out of the breeding chain permanently. How will stopping the euthanisia (as No Kill advocates propose), doing licensing enforcement and using the money to do 100 spay/neuter surgeries as you have indicated improve the situation? Haven't you just swapped 1,000 permanent solutions for only 100 permanent solutions? I know the situation isn't that simple. I ask as a way to start the talk.   Report Violation posted by Shwaine on May 23, 2008 at 09:07 AM As the UC Davis report suggests, increasing the Return to Owner (RTO) rate decreases crowding and pressue on the shelter by never putting the animals in the shelter in the first place. Licensing is one way of increasing RTO because the animal control officer can look up the address associated with the tag and return the animal immediately. Increasing license enforcement is less about the rate of spay/neuter surgeries per month and more about reducing the flow of animals through the shelter. Although, one could argue that the rate of spay/neuter will increase (both low-cost options and full-cost at private vets) because a lower license fee for fixed animals provides a "carrot" to the owners to get their animals fixed. Report Violation posted by Jburger on May 23, 2008 at 09:34 AM Shwaine, Here's my curiousity point: Nearly everyone I've talked to about this issue offers up only one solution for the problem: It's either MSN or education or licensing or low-cost spay neuter. But, after covering this issue closely for five years, I've begun to suspect that implementing one or even two solution doesn't solve anything. Since 2004 the shelter has made big strides in working with rescues and increasing adoptions and RTOs. But intake and kill rates are still going up. We intake 28,000 animals a year. We kill 18,000 of them. The AC Commission, on Wednesday, called for the county to try a bunch of different solutions at once — enforcement, licensing, low-cost spay neuter and even the dis-liked breeder permits. Is that the right plan?   Report Violation posted by Jburger on May 23, 2008 at 02:36 PM Pup. Just reporting the facts here. The AC Commission voted 3-1 to support: increased inforcement (Madigan opposed) low cost spay-neuter and education programs (Madigan opposed) breeder permits (Anderson opposed)   As you know they split on MSN — 2-2 The discussion, before the votes were made, included the assumption that whatever level of action the commission recommended would include ALL of the lesser options as well. So Supervisors will now have to decide if they will support a multi-task approach to fixing animal problems. James Report Violation posted by KeepTrying on May 23, 2008 at 09:32 PM Pup Again your anger is misplaced - the commissioners are not dropping off puppies/dogs or kittens/cats at KCAC.  I have yet to see any of the commissioners attend one meeting with cats or dogs falling out of their pockets.  Be angry at a community that argues every point on one side or the other at every ACC meeting. No, rejoice in the fact that with this much input  - maybe this time there will be an enforceable ordinance put in place.   Attribute lost time to the fact that the changes in the proposed ordinance had to be paraded around the County for weeks on end so that the community could have their input in to the situation.  Attribute lost time to having to read and reread line by line the proposals in the potential new ordinance.    The ACC is easy to bag on and be angry with because they have made themselves available to help put an end to all of this madness.  You consistently overlook the fact that the commissioners are all pet owners/lovers that are volunteers, one is an assistant D.A. that prosecutes animal cruelty cases, one owns a shelter, three are rescuers, 3 are former board members of the Bakersfield SPCA - people that truly care about the animal population of Kern.   Pup - there have been other ACCs and none of them have had the right solution.   Maybe this time the ACC will get it right.  Time is of the essence - but what good is it to pass an ordinance that might end up in the courts?  More animals will die while it is dragged through the courts.   Education, Enforcement of licensing with a low cost spay/neuter program with vouchers and Breeding permits - the tools are there KCAC must simply use them.  In the end Pup. - we are all on the same page.  The vast majority of us want the senseless killing to stop and, as usual, change begins at home - each and every pet owning home in Kern County.  Hang in there Pup! Report Violation posted by KeepTrying on May 24, 2008 at 02:50 PM Pup - are you listening at the meetings?  The chair of the ACC spoke in favor of MSN - voted in favor of putting MSN in place.  DID YOU MISS THAT?  WERE YOU NOT IN THE ROOM? Report Violation posted by KeepTrying on May 24, 2008 at 03:12 PM jburger the numbers that were chosen were random.  Even if only 100 dogs are taken out of the breeding chain (monthly) and avoid the sting of euthanasia  - isn't that progress?  Death is permanent alright!  100 saved monthly is a start in the right direction.  Furthermore, 100 not reproducing brings down the ever exploding number of animals at the shelters.  The sting of $75.00 for licensing per intact dog billed annually to the owner may be just the kick the irresponsible owners need to get their dogs spayed or neutered.  Everyone wins with licensing - people that spay or neuter save money on their dog licensing fees,  people that refuse to spay or neuter generate additional funds for low cost spay neuter clinics or vouchers, animals must be vaccinated to get licensed so the health of the community gets a boost and the list of wins continues. James - I think that we sometimes overlook that fact that Bakersfield is growing and thus the problems of the community grow.  Additionally, as the number of people losing their homes grows - so will the number of discarded animals.  Many of these people are moving back into rental properties that do not allow animals.  SO WHAT DO THESE PEOPLE DO?   They dump the animals at the shelters.  It happens often these days. Report Violation posted by Shwaine on May 24, 2008 at 11:05 PM James, I haven't read all the comments yet. I wanted to reply to your question to me untainted, as it were. If you read my other comments on this topic on other blogs, you will see I support a comprehensive plan that includes animal control reorganization, low-cost spay/neuter, appropriate financial funding to animal control, increased community support and increased enforcement of animal control and cruelty laws. I think that just passing a mandatory spay/neuter law without all the appropriate support and enforcement is nothing but a platitude to certain members of the populace, rather than an actual attempt to curb the overpopulation problem. I really like the recommendations in the UC Davis report because it hits on these issues. This is a complex problem and it will require a multi-faceted approach to even attempt to solve it. Report Violation posted by KeepTrying on May 25, 2008 at 09:21 AM SHWAINE - YOU GET IT!    IT IS IMPERATIVE THAT MANDATORY LICENSING BE ENFORCED!!!!    PEOPLE MUST BE EDUCATED. CANVASSING FOR THE ENFORCEMENT OF MANDATORY LICENSING WILL PAY FOR THE CANVASSERS,  HELP PAY FOR LOW COST SPAY NEUTER CLINICS/VOUCHERS, AND HELP PAY FOR THE COST OF THE KERN COUNTY ANIMAL SHELTER AND THE EMPLOYEES NECESSARY TO RUN THE PROGRAM. MAYBE THE POSSIBILITY OF A  SELF SUPPORTING PROGRAM JUST DOES NOT FIT INTO THE AMERICAN WAY OF GOVERNMENT!  OH MY GOSH - WHAT A UNIQUE THOUGHT -  A GOVERNMENT RUN PROGRAM THAT MIGHT BE OPERATED LIKE A PRIVATE BUSINESS MODEL!!!! THE PRODUCT IS THE PROTECTION OF ANIMALS AND THE COMMUNITY IN WHICH THEY LIVE.  TO OWN A ANIMAL IN THE COMMUNITY - YOU LICENSE IT AS YOU WOULD A CAR.  THIS LICENSING FEES WOULD SUBSTANTIALLY SUPPORT THE PROGRAMS AND SHELTER NECESSARY TO CARE FOR THE ANIMALS THAT ARE LOST OR ABANDONED.  THE LICENSING MONEY ALSO HELPS "RE - HOME" ANIMALS THAT ARE LOST OR SURRENDERED.   LICENSING FEES ALSO HELP THOSE IN THE COMMUNITY THAT CANNOT AFFORD TO SPAY OR NEUTER THEIR PETS BUT WOULD ENJOY THE COMPANIONSHIP OF AN ANIMAL FRIEND.  JUST MAYBE IF ANIMALS HAD A PERCEIVED CASH VALUE (INVESTMENT IN LICENSING, VACCINATIONS, SPAYING OR NEUTERING, ETC.)PEOPLE WOULD TREASURE THEM JUST A BIT  MORE. THIS MUST BE A PROCESS OF EDUCATION, LICENSING, SPAYING OR NEUTERING AND CONTINUED CARE WITH APPROPRIATE PENALTIES FOR THOSE THAT CHOOSE NOT TO COMPLY.  THE CHOICE IS SIMPLE - IF YOU DO NOT LIKE THE LAWS - DO NOT OWN AN ANIMAL!!! SIMPLY DEMANDING THAT PEOPLE SPAY OR NEUTER WILL NOT BEGIN TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM.  IF PEOPLE DO NOT HAVE THE MONEY FOR SPAYING OR NEUTERING THEIR PETS NOW,  WHERE WILL THEY GET IT JUST BECAUSE THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS DEMANDS THAT THEY COMPLY.  KERN COUNTY HAS A LAW, AS DOES THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA, THAT MANDATES LICENSING.   WE SEE THAT THE LACK OF ENFORCEMENT OF MANDATORY LICENSING IS ALLOWING FOR THE DEATH OF 30 TO 60 ANIMALS PER DAY.  LET'S SEE WHAT ENFORCEMENT MIGHT DO FOR THE SITUATION. WITHOUT ENFORCEMENT THERE IS NO PRESSURE PLACED UPON THE COMMUNITY TO COMPLY.  AS WE SEE ON A DAILY BASIS AT SHELTERS THROUGHOUT KERN COUNTY - LOADS OF UNALTERED, UNLICENSED AND UNWANTED INCONVENIENCES ARE DUMPED.  THE ANIMALS DO NOT HAVE A PERCEIVED VALUE BECAUSE THERE IS LITTLE OR NO INVESTMENT MADE IN THEM. Report Violation posted by pmelko on May 25, 2008 at 01:20 PM I'm curious.  Who is active as a rescuer, take in dogs or cats routinely, cat trapper, foster home, shelter volunteer, placement/adoption, rehabilitator or directly involved with animals needing to be put out of harms way?    Admittedly I'm one of the biggest critics of animal control.  They're an animal disposal agency, no different from other gov't agencies that remove donkeys, mustangs, control wildllife numbers that put them up for auction.  Unless and until we unite to act on the real issues nothing will change.  Can someone respond back with their definition of irresponsible pet ownership please?  I have my own concept but would like to hone in on the views of others.  Thanks. Report Violation posted by NancyII on May 25, 2008 at 01:31 PM Irresponsible pet ownership: 1.  Letting dogs run loose in the neighborhood. 2.  Not spaying or neutering. 3.  Letting pet cats run loose assuming they'll stay in the back yard.  (Was that yours I saw splattered on the street?) 4.  Allowing dogs to breed indiscriminantly.  (If mutts..allowing them to breed at all is insane.) There are more..give me a minute. Report Violation posted by bakoblue on May 25, 2008 at 02:08 PM pmelko --- I am one of whom you speak. My husband and I have been actively rescuing companion animals (and some wildlife) for well over 10 years, spending hundreds (I'd write thousands, but it makes me blanch a little) of dollars treating, rehabbing, altering and rehoming. I have volunteered with several animal-related nonprofits, both in northern California and in Bakersfield since we moved here. I have worked the vast majority of the SPCA spay/neuter events as a volunteer, have served on their board and am currently part of the volunteer group going through training and orientation for the KCAC. In addition, I recently completed training to be a volunteer animal rescuer during natural or man-made disasters as part of the Emergency Animal Rescue Service (EARS) program through United Animal Nations. My definition of irresponsible pet ownership? Getting a pet without being committed to caring for them for the whole of their lives, and understanding that the whole of their lives may mean well over a decade. Getting a pet without considering that at some point they will need medical care, and failing to plan accordingly. Getting a pet without taking into account what it costs to properly care for one, be it the cost of a quality food, toys, grooming, training or veterinary care. And yes, given the enormous pet overpopulation issue we have in Kern County, allowing the pet you acquire to breed. Dogs and cats are living, breathing, thinking and feeling beings, and they deserve far more than they frequently receive at the hands of people who get them on a whim, only to toss them aside like last year's handbag the minute they become "inconvenient".   Report Violation posted by lovesasurfer on May 25, 2008 at 02:09 PM off the subject just a little bit, but I really have a hard time with people out walking their dogs not on a lease. I have a small 5 lb dog that is scared to death of other dogs because she has been attacked by dogs not on their leashes. Most of the time they want to play but she does not know that. One bite and she would be a goner. I end up picking her up and carrying her when I see them coming, but sometimes they come from behind. Talk about IRRESPONSIBLE PET OWNERSHIP !!! what ever happened to the leash law ? Report Violation posted by NancyII on May 25, 2008 at 04:38 PM lovesasurfer, that's the main reason I won't walk my dogs in my area.  My little guy wouldn't make a large appetizer and the Lab is subservient and I doubt she'd fight back.  Responsible ownership, or love if you will, is moving to a part of town you swore you'd never live because the house had a huge yard I could afford..  My dream was to buy a MH in the senior park on West Columbus but I would have had to give my Allie away to strangers.  That's something I couldn't do.  Now my grandkids have bought a house and offered to take her...trouble is, who would be my back yard security system?  And who would I play Frisbee with? Report Violation posted by Shwaine on May 25, 2008 at 06:35 PM Pup, you keep looking at each part as a seperate entity instead of seeing the plan as a whole. I just don't have the energy to try to explain it to you anymore since it's like talking to a brick wall (which is only amusing in A Midsummer Night's Dream). Pmelko, when it comes to feral cats, something every community can do is implement a trap/neuter/release program. The SPCA even had vouchers last year for such a program (and I had several ferals fixed with those), so the primary expense would be in getting a live animal trap and transporting the animals to a vet. I know when I got my vouchers, the SPCA gal even encouraged a neighborhood effort in getting the ferals fixed (they allowed 3 vouchers per address, but no limit per neighborhood, so you could get many vouchers if you worked with your neighbors). The biggest issue you might run into besides expense is making sure no one involved in the effort has a heart bigger than their means, so that they don't take in more animals than they can handle. You will find that animal horders are drawn to such an effort and are very difficult to handle. As for irresponsible ownership, I find there are several levels, each with different issues and potential solutions. I like to divide them into the "don't care", "overwhelmed" and "horder" categories. The "don't care" folks tend to see animals as disposable, so they don't bother with basic care like spay/neuter and vaccination. These are the hardest folks to deal with and this is where a good animal enforcement division would be the most help. They tend to only see dollar signs, so they will only be discourage from keeping animals or encouraged to keep them healthy under the threat of large fines (and even then that won't always work because there will be those who think they won't get caught). I consider the puppy mill folks to fall into this category too as they see the animals as dollar signs instead of living creatures needing care. The "overwhelmed" folks have good intentions, but just got in over their heads. Maybe they hit a financial hard spot or they came down with a serious illness or their animal has come down with an expensive to treat illness. They are the ones most helped by financial programs for the economical problems, education programs to prevent them from getting in over their heads in the first place and rehoming programs for when they just can't keep the animal. They want to be responsible pet owners, but just can't manage for some reason. The "horders" are a whole other ball of wax and require psychological intervention, not just citations by animal control. They actually think they're doing good because of the mental illness. Dealing with horders goes way beyond just slapping on a fine. They need years of intensive psychological treatment and constant supervision. Usually it needs a concerted effort between animal control and social services to rehab a horder. Sometimes building code enforcement also needs to be involved. I really don't see this county being able to effectively handle horders any time soon. Report Violation posted by lovesasurfer on May 25, 2008 at 09:39 PM Nancy I would never give up my baby girl for a house either . She is the only one that listens too me, never complains when I am in a bad mood and sleeps in with me !!! I feel honored to be her gaurdian !! Well yes, I do love my dog HA HA Report Violation posted by KeepTrying on May 27, 2008 at 11:51 PM Pup Spay/neuter laws are only as good as the enforcement and funding behind them.  If we as a County do not offer low cost s/n clinics the animals are no more protected then they are at this very moment.    It takes education, enforcment and low cost spay neuter clinics to bring the slaughter to an end.  Without those three components in place the same old same old just keeps happening.  POINT YOUR FINGER AT WHOM EVER YOU WISH - THE PROBLEM STARTS IN THE BACKYARDS OF THE IRRESPONSIBLE.  Believe me it only starts with the pets  ask Human Services about the number of children that are dumped into the system regularly. If you really want to cry - cry for the voiceless baby that was found in the dumpster in Taft. Hang in there Pup - if we all keep trying maybe just maybe we can make a difference. Report Violation posted by WESLEYSMOMMY on May 28, 2008 at 02:26 PM I agree with you Pup. Sweet video, too. My hubby and I adopted 2 dogs from the animal shelter who had been there for a long time. They are now happy and we love them to pieces. I wish I could do more to help. I do think the manditory spay/neuter is worth a try.... I don't know of anything else that might work. Some people are just too irresponsible to care for their animals.  Report Violation posted by pmelko on May 29, 2008 at 01:15 AM Does the problem start in the backyards of the irresponsible?  Let's step away from the word "irresponsible" for the moment.  The primary adult caregiver of a dog or cat needs knowledge, time and motivation to provide adequate care to a pet.  There are daily tasks like feeding, exercise and cleanup.  It also takes dedication and skill to obedience train, house break and crate train. Another area of pet care is health.  It takes knowledge and money for dog & cat vaccinations, parasite identification and control, and behavior issues. Anyone choosing not to alter a female needs to understand how to prevent a union with a male during the heat cycle.  They should very clearly understand how long females are in heat, when they can get pregnant and how to identify the physical/visual signs of when she will try to breed with a male.  There are lots of stories about dogs breaking through home windows, eating through chain link, doors and walls to get to a male. Before considering to breed a person needs significant knowledge regarding breed specific health issues, genetics and characteristics like over/underbite, missing teeth, hip displasia, that disqualify an animal from entering the gene pool.  Most breed clubs have developed a code of ethics that includes breeding ethics.  Many are mandatory.  AKC isn't just a shell.  To the contrary they're quite sophisticated.   Anyone that puts them down hasn't had any experience with their rules.  They investigate complaints and take away all priveleges from individuals found guilty of abuse or cruelty and other violations. So, are people irresponsible pet owners, uninformed,  self absorbed or ignorant.  How many people take their pet to a shelter because the dog has diarrhea from worms, dug in the yard, knocks over the kids or a baby is on the way? Report Violation posted by KeepTrying on May 29, 2008 at 02:37 AM pmelko You asked and answered your own question.  Do you think mandatory spay / neuter is going to keep one irresponsible pet owner from dumping their pet because a baby is coming, the dog has diarrhea due to worms or because the dog dug in the yard?   No - the irresponsible will continue to dump their inconveniences!!! Pmelko - you make my point for me   mandatory spay neuter is not the answer.   EDUCATION, LICENSING ENFORCEMENT AND LOW COST SPAY/NEUTER in combination is the very thing that will start to turn the tide of our pet overpopulation crisis.  Teach people how to break their animals' bad habits - maybe video material can be made available at the shelters  - we know that this information is available at pet stores.   Let's teach retention rather than surrender.   Enforce licensing - make each animal care provider/owner license their dogs.  Puppy mills should be sought out and eliminated.  If the puppy mill folks had to pay licensing for each intact animal, it would surely cut into their profit margin.  It just might make it unappealing to have the County inspecting their puppy mill if mill owners had to have a breeders permit.  Then the County or enforcement agency should take a share of the fees and fund low cost spay/neuter clinics.  LET'S STOP PET OVERPOPULATION WHERE IT STARTS - and it starts with unaltered animals.   Report Violation posted by KeepTrying on May 29, 2008 at 03:55 PM Pup Your simplistic approach is flawed - if we cannot enforce simple mandatory licensing  -   HOW ON EARTH CAN WE ENFORCE MSN?  Where do you expect the funds to come from for all of those mandated spays and neuters?  Do you really believe that people are going to magically become responsible if a mandate is put in place. GOOD LUCK WITH THAT!    We all know how well that has worked out with unenforced mandated licensing!!!    Kern County's coffers are drying up. Most County departments are looking at major budget cuts.   We all know that people services will take priority over animal services (as it should be).   Los Angeles with your precious MSN in place is already cutting back a full 20% on their animal services programs.    The shelters will continue to fill up with dumped animals. Pup   it is time for you to read the shelter report from U.C. Davis (performed by Dr. Sandra Newbury D.V.M. of the U.C. Davis Koret School  that clearly states that  Kern County needs A self-sustainable low cost spay/neuter program. (I CAN HELP YOU CUT TO THE CHASE HERE  - IT IS ON PAGE 8 OF THE REPORT).   NO WHERE IN THE REPORT FROM U.C. DAVIS DOES IT EVEN MENTION THE WORDS ''MSN".  However, the report mentions low cost spay neuter. Well Pup -  hang in there  we are all on the same page some of us just want to take a realistic business based approach to solving this problem.   The money must be sustainable for pet over population to be controlled and spay/neuter to work.  We all want this crisis to end.  If the money is not there to support the program  -  nothing will change and the dogs and cats will just keep showing up at  the shelter and wait out their State mandated 96 hours to be euthanized.   Report Violation posted by RoyTullis on May 29, 2008 at 05:14 PM Might be we should take a lesson from the Koreans.  Not one stray dog or cat to be seen. They end up in the pot. Just a thought. Report Violation posted by KeepTrying on May 29, 2008 at 09:26 PM Pup You have apparently sheltered yourself from the good things going on between the County and Bakersfield SPCA. Although there is not MSN in Kern County  the two entities have successfully run 2 low cost spay neuter clinics and both have been completely booked and slots filled.  Amazing, when low cost is offered in Bakersfield, people come with their pets willingly.   The SPCA handles all of the logistics - very successfully!   People show up with their pets in a timely fashion because they prepay for their reservation.  Look at that  - perceived value, an investment of their money reminds them to show up.   That was the problem with HOPE when it was coming to Bakersfield.   People made their reservations, but no money was put on the table.  SO IT WAS NO BIG DEAL IF THEY DID NOT SHOW.  They had no investment - there was no perceived value.    That is why HOPE pulled out - too many cancellations.  Two Sundays ago - 75 SEVENTY FIVE dogs were altered (spayed or neutered) in this joint effort between SPCA AND KERN COUNTY.  Now that is progress and just goes to show that we don't need MSN - we need low cost spay neuter. MARCH 1ST  A LOCAL FAMILY SPONSORED A LOW COST CAT SPAY/NEUTER CLINIC AT  WHICH 125+ CATS WERE SPAYED OR NEUTERED.   THAT IS WHAT MAKES THE DIFFERENCE - PEOPLE PUTTING THEIR MONEY WHERE THEIR MOUTH IS. SO DO WE REALLY NEED ANOTHER UNENFORCEABLE LAW ?  NO!!! It does not take MSN to start the wave - it takes the availability of low cost spay neuter.  That is exactly what the model in San Mateo is showing.  It is not MSN that is successful, it is the availability of low cost spay neuter that is making the difference.  Report Violation posted by vanityfair on May 29, 2008 at 11:21 PM Enforce laws in effect, please. This really is mostly about cats, and "cat people.'  No need to go any further with an explanation, as most understand my point. Cats are pretty smart. They will avoid a trap (on MY property) like it's Kitty Auschwitz.  Report Violation posted by pmelko on Jun 3, 2008 at 09:56 PM I came across this article while looking for info on development of birth control for pets.  How Animal Birth Control Programs Benefit Dogs, Cats, and Veterinarians ¡Pura Vida! conference address Congress of the National College of Veterinarians, San Jose, Costa Rica, October 25, 2001