THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, August 13, 1994 TAG: 9408120023
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Medium: 61 lines
Michael Shumaker (letter, July 30) feels city licensing of felines is an empty, unnecessary waste of money that will break the banks of those on fixed incomes and ``saddle cat owners with another expense and make them waste time looking for a hardware store that sells licenses.'' A quick thumb through any modern phone book should ease the anxiety of locating a hardware store. As for the rest of Mr. Shumaker's statements:
Responsible pet ownership begins with having the income to support your pet. An animal license fee is a predictable cost; the same cannot be said for any unexpected, emergency medical costs that could realistically occur in the course of owning an animal. If the owner cannot shell out the small license fee ($2 to $10), how can he or she be expected to pay veterinarian bills? Let's also throw in the food tab, the optimal grooming fees, annual animal check-ups and vaccinations, flea preventatives. Owning a live animal is not a one-time fee.
Mr. Shumaker is almost correct in his assumption that licensing will have no affect on the breeding habits of abandoned cats. Unfortunately, overpopulation is a severe problem, but it can be attributed to irresponsible owners as well as to alley cats. So how will mandatory licensing address this problem?
The city provides a substantially lower fee for sterilized animals, and it has a good reason for it. Imagine having a job where you had to roll up your sleeves and kill more than 60 innocent, healthy animals daily.
Local shelters destroy more than 17,000 animals per shelter every year. If licensing could save just 1 percent of that total, I'd say it's worth the money.
Licensing is not the absolute answer to overpopulation, but it may encourage owners to sterilize their animals. Sterilization is an absolute answer.
Rabid animals are not lurking in every trash can, waiting to infect your animal with one, foam-flecked bite. But ask a family whose golden retriever killed a potentially rabid raccoon about mandatory rabies vaccinations. The decision to isolate the animal for six months (with no human contact) or have the animal destroyed is a choice no loving family should have to make.
A city license requires a rabies vaccination, thereby eliminating the choice. If an animal gets loose, and has no other tag except a license, the least a finder will know is that the animal has had a rabies vaccination. And that can mean the difference between life and death at a shelter. A license equals a rabies vaccination equals a fighting chance on the outside.
I work for the Animal Assistance League, a not-for-profit, privately funded shelter, located in Chesapeake. Our goal is to help save homeless dogs and cats with as little euthanasia as possible. I sympathize with the local shelters, which must destroy thousands and thousands of animals yearly. And I support measures that will decrease these numbers. We should work toward seeing that funds collected from our pets benefit the homeless animals, instead of trying to eliminate the funds altogether.
DAVID ARRINGTON PHILPOTT
Chesapeake, Aug. 4, 1994 by CNB