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Home > Archive > Feb 21, 2008

'Fixing' Pet Homelessness in Utah
By Cami Cox
Staff Writer
When former silver screen sweetheart Doris Day left her celebrity day job, she took up the cause of animal advocacy. Through her Doris Day Animal Foundation, she spearheaded “Spay Day USA,” an event that takes place annually throughout the country.
Sponsored by the The Humane Society of the United States, Spay Day officially occurs nationally on Feb. 26 this year, and according to the Humane Society's Web site, Spay Day events happen across the nation during the entire month of February to remind, encourage and enable pet owners to spay and neuter their animals.
On a local level, discounted spay and neuter clinics are regularly available through “The Big Fix,” a statewide service sponsored by No More Homeless Pets in Utah. The Big Fix, a mobile spay, neuter and vaccination clinic, toured Southern Utah, Feb. 18-20, in conjunction with Spay Day USA and will return again soon to provide additional low-cost services to pet owners (upcoming Big Fix schedules will be available at www.utahpets.org).
According to the Doris Day Animal Foundation Web site, events like Spay Day occur to remind Americans of the importance of sterilizing their pets.
April McManus, animal control officer at the St. George Animal Shelter, said fixing dogs and cats is important for their health, as well.
“Not only does spaying and neutering help control the population, but you're going to have a healthier, happier animal,” McManus said. “There's a lot of benefits. It lowers the chances of cancers, plus your animal's not going to wander off looking for a mate and getting in fights.”
Risks of testicular and ovarian cancers are eliminated when an animal is spayed or neutered, and some other factors to consider, according to No More Homeless Pets, are that fixing pets reduces aggressive behavior, house soiling or spraying, excessive meowing and barking, and bleeding and other problems that occur when female animals are in heat.
“If owners have no intentions of breeding their pets, then they have no reason to not spay or neuter,” McManus said. “They need to get it taken care of.”
According to the No More Homeless Pets Web site, some common reasons people cite for not spaying or neutering their pets relate to ascribing human emotion to the animals. Men tend to sympathize with their male pets, thinking it cruel to neuter the animals and deprive them of their virility. Women tend to think their female pets will feel empty and have unsatisfied motherly urges if deprived of their ability to produce offspring. According to No More Homeless Pets, neither is true.
“There's a lot of myths about spay/neuter that need to be dispelled,” said Holly Sizemore, No More Homeless Pets executive director. “Many men do, quite rightly so, have a bit of a negative reaction to the thought of neutering a male animal. They say, 'I don't feel comfortable neutering him. I wouldn't want that done to me!' But your pet is not you. His psychology and biology are quite different.”
Sizemore said a male animal is genetically preconditioned to produce as many offspring as possible, thanks to his wilderness-bred predecessors who answered the instinctual survival call to propagate their species. Female dogs and cats only care for their babies for a few months before weaning them and often being separated forever, so to keep an animal reproductively fertile because of human concerns. Sizemore said, isn't necessary and is, in fact, harmful, as it contributes to the population of homeless and unwanted pets.
Sara Post Lee, of the Providing Animals with Support Organization, an animal rescue group in St. George, said another reason people have given her for not sterilizing pets is that they want their children to witness the miracle of birth, or they think their dog is especially wonderful and, therefore, should have puppies to carry on its legacy. Neither reason, she said, is adequate justification for not spaying or neutering a pet.
“There are wonderful dogs being put down every day,” she said. “It is heartbreaking to see these perfectly wonderful animals being put to sleep because they aren't wanted, and there aren't enough homes available.”
Sizemore said something else to consider is that each time a puppy or kitten is given away from a home litter, a shelter animal is potentially being deprived of adoption. If litters are prevented through spaying and neutering, she said, more individuals will turn to their local shelters for a pet, rather than getting a dog or cat from a neighbor, an ad in the newspaper, or kids giving puppies and kittens away in front of a store.
Additionally, McManus said, when folks fail to fix their animals, a snowball breeding effect can occur, especially with cats. If an unfixed outdoor cat has a litter of kittens, and those kittens aren't fixed and are allowed to roam free, before an owner knows it, there is a thriving population of breeding cats living in the backyard.
“If cats are allowed to breed unchecked – and cats can subsist meagerly sometimes, because of mice and birds and whatnot – they won't live a good life without the care and assistance of human beings,” Sizemore said. “But they will live long enough to breed, and then you've got undernourished kittens running around.”
Oftentimes, McManus said, in such cases, the cats become wild due to lack of human contact. When wild, or feral, cats are taken to the animal shelter, it is the end of the line for them.
“We do hang onto them for a period of three days, but a feral cat, for us, is not adoptable,” she said. “Plus, the animal is in a cage here, where it's used to being outside and running around. So it's miserable here, and no one is going to want to adopt that cat, because they turn into a wild animal.”
Kris Neal, a St. George resident, spends many hours each week humanely trapping feral cats in the St. George and Hurricane areas, having them fixed and then turning them loose.
“The feral cat problem is gigantic,” she said. “Last year, we fixed well over 400 cats just in my program.”
She said anyone feeding feral cats at their homes should call her – she can get the animals sterilized for as little as $20. Other groups like hers are scattered throughout the state, providing the same service. She said she knows of another such group in the Cedar City and Enoch area, and people should call the animal shelters in those cities for more information. As a side note, each feral cat that gets spayed or neutered is marked in the tip of one ear, so that animal control or rescue groups will know the animal has been sterilized.
To contact Neal about getting a feral cat spayed or neutered, call her at 619-4712. For feral cat services in Hurricane, contact Sue Barrett at 635-9067. For feral cat services in other areas, contact the city's local animal shelter or the No More Homeless Pets toll-free hotline, 866-PETS-FIX (866-738-7349).
No More Homeless Pets also helps dog and cat owners in Utah who can't afford a trip to the veterinarian, Sizemore said.
“Most people find killing animals as a means of controlling the population reprehensible, but people need to realize the solution is in their hands,” she said. “We are committed to helping people do the right thing by providing low- and no-cost spay and neuter services.”
“The Big Fix” routinely visits local animal shelters. To check availability or to schedule an appointment, call a local shelter or the No More Homeless Pets hotline. For upcoming “Big Fix” schedules, see the No More Homeless Pets Web site, www.utahpets.org.
For more information about the Doris Day Animal Foundation, visit www.ddaf.org. To contact the P.A.W.S. organization, visit their office at 857 E. Tabernacle or call 688-9748.

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