This is a continuation from yesterday’s post

MYTH FIVE: “I want my dog to be protective.”

Spay and Neuter does not affect a dog’s natural instinct to protect home and family. A dog’s personality is formed more by genetics and environment than by sex hormones. The only changes in behavior you’ll see are positive ones.
Tom cats tend to reduce their territorial spraying depending upon the age they are neutered. If neutered young enough, before they begin spraying, they may never develop the behavior.
Neutered male cats and dogs fight less, resulting in fewer battle scars, contagious diseases such as Feline Leukemia and horrible abscesses.
And since they aren’t interested in pursuing females in heat, they also wander less, greatly reducing their chances of being hit by a car or getting lost.

MYTH SIX: “I don’t want my male dog or cat to feel like less of a male.”

Pets don’t have any concept of sexual identity or ego – HUMANS DO!
He doesn’t suffer any kind of emotional reaction or identity crisis when neutered – HUMANS project that onto them.
If your dog’s balls mean so much to YOU, and you have the resources to spend, consider Neuticles. </sarcasm>
However, you might consider getting a larger pair for yourself, and give your dog a break!
When I worked with a city shelter in the San Francisco Bay Area, I witnessed a young man trying to pick up his lost dog from the pound.

It was an intact pitbull. Very sweet – his owner not so much. He was informed that they wouldn’t release an un-neutered pit, and that by claiming the dog, he had to get the animal neutered within a certain time frame. He made a huge scene about how his beloved dog can’t be neutered. He couldn’t have his “baby’s balls cut off….”

The argument went on for a while.

Pitbulls are likely one of the most misunderstood and most abused breed in our society.

He finally said – “F*ck it – keep the stupid dog!!” - and stomped out.

Left his beloved dog, his baby there, on death row. Now jumped from “stray” up the death row chart to “owner surrender”. Needless to say – this once beloved baby was destroyed.
Why did I not do anything. Because our rescue was already over capacity, boarding dogs because foster homes were full and I personally had a house full of orphaned “wonders of birth”-kittens to foster.

neo natal orphaned kitten - death by ignorance of humans. Kittens like these are euthanized by default if no rescue will take them. And most won't/can't because of the lack of volunteers..

There are no resources.

Volunteers are hard to come by, and the ones shelters and rescues are so very lucky to have are exhausted!

MYTH SEVEN: “It’s too expensive to have my pet spayed or neutered.”

The cost of spaying or neutering depends on the sex, size, and age of the pet, your veterinarian’s fees, and a number of other variables.

But whatever the actual price, spay or neuter surgery is a one-time cost; a relatively small cost when compared to all the benefits.

It’s a bargain compared to the cost of having a litter and ensuring the health of the mother and litter; two months of pregnancy and another two months until the litter is weaned can add up to significant veterinary bills and food costs if complications develop. Most important, it’s a very small price to pay for the health of your pet and the prevention of the births of more unwanted pets.

Many counties offer free or low cost spay/neuter clinics or vouchers.

Contact your local shelter for more information. If it turns out that there are no resources in your area, consider getting involved in you community, and help organize a yearly event. Thanks to social networking it is getting easier and easier setting up events and get the word out.
Use this tool!
Remember to BE THE CHANGE – don’t wait for others to do it for you!

Fix your pets, educate your friends and family, and don’t forget to you join us on Facebook and invite others to do so, that way we can network and delegate the resources each of us has to offer.

Thanks to Misha Dickerson, Jedi Master of the Let’s Adopt US blog

"FREE to good home"... the "wonders of birth" come at a high price for the animals AND our communities

MYTH ONE : “My pet will get fat and lazy.”

The truth is that most pets get fat and lazy because their owners feed them too much junk food (canned or dry) and treats loaded with HFCS, and don’t give them enough exercise. A run around the yard is NOT exercise. Consider switching our animals to a raw diet, which will keep them healthy, happy, lean and your visits to the vet at a minimum.

Read our blog about why Let’s Adopt insists feeding our animals a raw diet.

MYTH TWO: “It’s better to have one litter first.”

Actually, science indicates just the opposite!!!
In fact, evidence shows that females spayed before their first heat are typically healthier. The best time to spay your female dog or cat is before her first heat. Early spaying greatly reduces the incidences of mammary cancer.
Both pregnancy and birth can be very stressful for the animal.
Animals giving birth sometimes die from complications.
Many veterinarians now sterilize dogs and cats as young as eight weeks of age.

MYTH THREE: “I’ll find good homes for all the puppies and kittens.”

You may find homes for all of your pet’s litter (in Turkey chances are YOU WON’T) . But each home you find means one less home for the dogs and cats in shelters who need good homes. Also, in less than one year’s time, each of your pet’s offspring may have his/her own litter, adding even more animals to the population. The original problem of crowded shelters is created by just one litter at a time.

There’s no need to breed – PERIOD!
This must stop!

orphaned kittens under the age of three weeks are euthanized on arrival at a shelter near you.... too much work, too little resources.

MYTH FOUR: “But my pet is purebred.”

So is at least one out of every four pets brought to animal shelters around the country. There are just too many dogs and cats; mixed breed and purebred.
Your purebred’s testes aren’t any more valuable than those of a mixed breed. They’ll contribute to the same problem.

Murat Bekhan the veterinarian has been doing a wonderful job since 2007. As part of the voluntary project he himself developed, he has been travelling both inside and outside İstanbul, educating students belonging to every age group, about stray dogs. I had the privilege to attend one of those meetings last Wednesday.

With his one man stand-up performance, Murat catches the attention of even the naughtiest, the most hyperactive, or the least interested student. He invents games so creative that 7 or 8 year old kids shout out: “I wanna be a dog too!”. Children are being shown, through slide shows, how to approach stray animals, how to behave if they come upon an aggressive dog, what tags on dogs’ ears mean. Murat wants to teach them empathy: kids close their eyes, lean back on their chair and work their brains out to be able to understand how a hungry, thirsty, kicked-around dog hiding in a garbage can would feel.

With the age group going up, games disappear, short movies are displayed, the essential and obligatory quality of spay/neuter operations are emphasized, the measures to be taken against the ever increasing number of stray animals are discussed.  It is up to students to find and decide on the most accurate solution.

At the end of the seminar, a SHKD book about stray dogs, a summary of what has been told during the seminar is distributed. Murat tells me he reached 14.000 students this way. But what lingers most in my head is the answer of a student, who, on being asked what happens to abandoned animals, employs an unwilling metaphor for shelters and shouts:  “They go to dog prison!”