THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, September 12, 1996 TAG: 9609110006
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A15 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Opinion
SOURCE: Patrick Lackey
LENGTH: 82 lines
A complete list of South Hampton Roads' regional problems should include the fatal surplus of dogs and cats.
The surplus isn't fatal to us humans, of course, but it is to about 35,000 cats and dogs each year. That's the estimated number put down annually in South Hampton Roads shelters. Nationwide, roughly 9 million cats and dogs are euthanized each year. Also, uncounted strays starve or get hit by cars or trucks.
One recent Saturday, the Virginia Beach SPCA averaged an animal turned in every 7 minutes.
In fact, this whole summer has been discouraging for workers there. Partly because of their good work educating the public about overbreeding and the need for spaying and neutering pets, the number of animals brought to them in June through August, their busiest months, had declined every summer from 1992 through 1995. But then this summer the number shot up. The three-month totals were 2,349 in 1992, down to 1,693 in 1995, but back up to 1,932 in 1996.
This year's increase in dogs and cats turned in was a lesson in regionalism, in the way one change in one city affects another.
The change occurred in Norfolk beginning July 1. The city commenced doing its own animal-control work and stopped paying the Norfolk SPCA $250,000 a year for the service. With less income, Norfolk SPCA reduced staff and limited the number of animals it would accept. Many of the animals the Norfolk SPCA would once have taken are ending up at the Virginia Beach SPCA.
So one city's problem, unsolved, has become another city's problem.
If the cities would share solutions as readily as they share problems, this would be a far better region.
There are a few things we all can do to solve the dog-and-cat overpopulation problem.
1. Don't breed your pets unless you're sure you can find homes for the puppies or kittens. The best way to avoid unwanted pet pregnancies is to spay and neuter pets.
2. If you want a pet, get it from one of the many shelters in Hampton Roads. Nationally, and presumably locally, only 14 percent of pets are obtained from shelters. That's ridiculous. At infamous puppy mills, farmers grow puppies as a kind of added cash crop. The puppies are purebred. That is, they have official American Kennel Club papers. But as a result of overbreeding, inbreeding and crowded and filthy cage conditions, they often are sorry dog specimens. Their bred-in problems usually don't appear until after someone has bought them at a pet store.
If you adopt a pet at the Virginia Beach SPCA, the adoption fee of $65 for a dog and $40 for a cat includes spaying or neutering. That is a bargain, and you can be sure you are not contributing to overpopulation.
When you adopt from a shelter, you may well save an animal's life. Nationally, about half of animals taken to shelters are euthanized. though the percentage is far higher in the summer.
When you buy from a store, you create a need for another animal to be bred to fill the display cage your animal was in. You encourage breeding.
3. Don't get a pet if you aren't willing to take responsibility for it for its lifetime. Of all the dogs and cats the Virginia Beach SPCA receives, 70 percent come from the pets' owners. The other 30 percent are strays. Dogs and cats are not furniture or toys to be casually discarded.
Let me conclude with two pet peeves.
One is the widespread presumption that purebred dogs are superior to mixed-breed dogs. You can get purebreds at the shelters. Thirty-two percent of dogs at the Virginia Beach SPCA are purebred. But if you follow the advice of Dr. Michael W. Fox, the veterinarian whose column runs in this paper, you'll get a mixed-breed dog or cat.
``Because of what is termed hybrid vigor,'' wrote Fox, vice president of farm animals and bioethics for the Humane Society of the United States, ``these animals are generally healthier and have far fewer genetic defects than purebred ones.'' If you must get a purebred animal, buy one directly from a reputable breeder. If you don't have time to locate a reputable breeder, you don't have time for a pet.
My second pet peeve is that the people who attempt to clean up society's messes are the ones who suffer, while those who make the messes go about their business in blissful ignorance. In the case of unwanted pets, the people suffering are the ones who must euthanize the cats and dogs. These are people who work at shelters to help animals. But because of society's indifference to overbreeding, these people too often must inject healthy animals with a blue fluid aptly named Fatal Plus. These are the people who have the nightmares about dying dogs and cats that should have homes. MEMO: Mr. Lackey is an editorial writer for The Virginian-Pilot. by CNB