Opinion: You love animals? Prove it: sterilize your pets

Opinion: You love animals? Prove it: sterilize your pets Sterilization, sterilization, sterilization. Municipalities must adopt laws to enforce spaying and neutering of domestic animals, and pet owners who don't comply need to be fined. Such a strategy has been adopted in Calgary, and it has been a huge success in controlling the animal population. This would have an impact on puppy mills as well, and would be a far more effective measure than planning to ban the sale of animals in pet stores. Animals are also less likely to run off and roam in search of mates, and then to fight and contract serious diseases as a consequence. Breeders and puppy mills find other ways to sell the animals, the Internet being the No. 1 avenue. More public awareness is needed. Too many people don't know about the pet-overpopulation issue and the consequences of not sterilizing their pets. It would be ideal to sensitize children by adopting programs in schools to teach them about responsible pet ownership; this could even be extended to teach them about basic pet care, and consequently responsibility toward people and society as well. , nearly 30 million dogs were born. It is estimated that sterilized dogs live one to three years longer, while sterilized cats survive three to five years longer than their fertile counterparts. In the U. , it is reported to be seven to one. One survey even showed that 85 per cent of dogs hit by cars were unsterilized. They seem oblivious to their contribution to the pet-overpopulation problem. These are astounding numbers, and they don't even take into account the animals that are simply abandoned and never end up in shelters. Another interesting statistic is the ratio of dog births to human births. Municipal regulations enforcing spaying and neutering at an early age could help curtail these trends. Christina Nosottiis a veterinarian who has worked with the Montreal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and does house calls in the West Island. shelters each year. That's nearly one every second, which means that in order for all those puppies to find a house, one would have to be bought or adopted every single second. And that's only dogs; imagine if we added cats to these figures. Many families let their pets have a litter so their children can experience the miracle of birth, but there are too many healthy homeless animals being euthanized in shelters to condone this. Statistics compiled by the Canadian Federation of Humane Societies show that in 2010 approximately 36 per cent of animals entering shelters in this country are euthanized. And the efforts of shelters and rescue groups are going to be completely futile as long as we don't curb the birthrate of our domestic animals. Such a ban has absolutely no effect on the birthrate of animals; it only displaces the issue. There is also at present an increase in the number of families breeding their pets, dogs especially, for more income. . Opinion: You love animals? Prove it: sterilize your pets Trade News selected by Local Linkup on 11/03/2012