I'm not talking Haiti. Not that I don't care. Of course I frickin' care. And I'll send a donation to Doctors Without Borders 'cos I love what they do... oh shit I've just realised, isn't that the same group of doctors called something like 'Doctors Sans Frontieres' or something french like that? And isn't it the french that caused all the problems in Haiti...I mean like Pat said...Napoleon the Third or whatever...some short guy...oh my god...and the pact with the devil was in order to throw the French out and get rid of all the coq au vin and that's what happened... and the Haitians were forever damned after that. It's all the freakin' Frenchies fault. And now their doctors are gonna go and pretend to treat these poverty stricken devil impacted poor people....oh shit.
You can see why I don't really want to talk or blog about the situation on the island of Hispaniola. I mean it is way too complex for me and far too French.
So, without any further ado - go right ahead, try and pick a fight with me in the dog park about spay/neuter laws. Just try it, because I tell you I am just pissed the fuck off. I don't believe in mandatory statewide spay neuter laws because they are completey unenforceable. They are a feelgood measure so that highly paid lobbyists can pretend they are spending donors money reducing killings in shelters caused by pet overpopulation. They aren't. What does work is offering true low cost or free available, accessible spay and neuter each and every day. But let me tell you what works also - when an animal is impounded into an animal shelter, it is an opportunity to intervene - if need be - to ensure that the owner/guardian gets a chance to correct what might have caused the animal to get into the shelter in the first place. I believe whoever you might be - whether you live in a campsite on the Albany Bulb, or whether you live in a monster house in the Oakland Hills - you should be able to get your animal back if it is impounded.
But if your dog is covered in wounds, if it's ears have just been shorn off by a garden implement, if your cat is covered in fleas and has anemia, if Hamlet has been impounded 6 times while crapping on people's front lawns and chasing squirrels, if your prized siamese is dripping blood in heat a mile from your home, if your dog has cojones the size of bowling balls and was cruising the neighbourhood looking for pussy - the canine kind - I think the city, which paid the money to safely catch and shelter your animal and which routinely kills healthy young animals because no-one wants to adopt the 'overflow' of unwanted animals - I think the city has an obligation and a freakin' right to require you to pay for medical treatment for whatever ails your pet, and to insist that unless you have a good reason why Buster was out cruising the freeway overpass - that the animal gets fixed before going home.
And if you say the goddam contractor left the gate open, or my dumbass kid dropped the leash, or Buster is actually a show dog Weimeraner and this will NOT happen again, or Princess is 14 and the vet says she is too old to undergo surgery - you know what - you get the animal back unfixed.
Reality is that most people - when told the animal has to be fixed, and that the shelter can arrange that, take the animal to the vet, and in many cases offer a low cost spay/neuter option - most people say 'oh, ok, and can you vaccinate it and microchip it as well?' And reality is that most show Weimeraners don't end up in animal shelters. Mostly it's a population of under socialised, neglected mutts. But it is an amazing thing how many people think their 70 pound pit/lab/hound/shepherd/rottie mix is so unbearably cute that they are going to 'breed' them and they already have homes lined up....
If one more person yells at me that I am trying to mess with their dogs 'reproductive rights' I may well have to throw mud at them. Dogs don't have rights as long as the very same people insist that the animals are property, and even then - would dogs make better decisions about having babies if they knew how many puppies are getting euthanised in shelters. We make the decision about how to end these animals lives when they are in pain, yet we don't want to mess with the 'natural' act of giving birth twice a year when there are no freakin' homes for these animals - dog and cat reproductive systems are still built for a time when giving birth in the wild meant a number of offspring dying at birth or taken by predators in the first few days or weeks. There is nothing 'natural' about breeding some stupid mastiff mix and selling the pups. Especially not when they are no longer cute at 9 months old and get dumped in shelters. Add in the number of testicular cancers, mammary tumours, ovarian cancers and fights and injuries associated with animals in heat....and well...you get the picture.
I believe in good dog and cat breeding.There. It is said. But there is a big picture here. I don't have all the figures but I do have one - the Martinez Shelter kills around 400 dogs and cats a month. I have been at the Antioch shelter and seen dead cats on the euthanasia table, young healthy dogs lined up in cages waiting for the Fatal Plus, I have seen photos of piles of bodies at rural shelters waiting to be heaped into the oven for burning. They bleed from the nose often and shit comes out of their asses as they die.
I am sick about it. I am furious that we breed these animals for our vanity, for our pocket books, for our stupidity, for their death. I'm gonna fight and argue for as many ways to fix animals before they leave the shelter under any circumstances. And these freakin' stupid libertarian 'don't mutilate my animal' arguments are making me ill. Go spend a day holding the animals down as they get killed in a shelter euthanasia room. Modern shelter design calls them 'comfort rooms'. Get the fuck over it.
Here. Here.
Posted by: Deborah D | January 17, 2010 at 04:20 PM