Please Be part of the SOLUTION, not the problem

One of the first things I noticed when I moved to San Antonio was the lack of animal control. This really bothered me to see so many unwanted animals roaming the streets. The BIGGEST contributing factor is the failure to SPAY /NEUTER. I have no idea what possesses people to leave their pets “unfixed” and outside. Yes, you might have a prize winning golden retriever, but when she’s in heat, she really doesn’t care that she just mated with the neighbor’s mutt. I can guarantee that THOSE puppies aren’t going to sell for anything.
Also, so many people tell me that they want to “sell” their puppies. All I can think of is “why?” Go to the pound, ANY given day and see the animals two or three to a cage. I used to volunteer for the humane society; the director there told me that EVERY year 30,000-50,000 domesticated pets are euthanized by the pound due to over population. Not euthanized because Rover was sick or old, but because there are too many. http://www.sanantonio.gov/animalcare...=1280&ver=true
Today, when walking to my car after class, I bent down to pet a cat that was in the neighborhood. I gave her a little bit of my sandwich and in about 30 seconds, I had 25 cats surrounding me. I talked to one of the men who live in that neighborhood and asked him whose cats they were and he said that most of them were strays. Imagine, 25 cats in your yard, on your porch, sitting on your car, in your trash, etc. He said that sometimes he feeds them. So obviously, he cares enough about them to make sure that they don’t starve.
A couple weeks ago, there was a “workshop” where ANYONE in the 78251 zip code (where I go to school) could have as many pets as they wanted SPAYED/NEUTERED FOR FREE. (see site for data [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2WQn3bnIAw"]YouTube- Big Fix Feb 2010[/ame] ) AND, the “BIG FIX” (this was the name of the workshop) was making FREE house calls, picking up animals for the elderly or people who were unable to drive their dogs/cats over there. WHY on EARTH would you not take advantage of that??? 152 animals were spayed/neutered that day. So it’s not like this was some big “secret”.
If you’re like this man, and have a heart enough to feed them, then certainly you realize that feeding 25 cats is EXPENSIVE, and you would want to minimize this. Again- why wouldn’t you get them fixed? In 7 years, a female cat and her offspring can produce 4,000 cats (see http://www.snapus.org/site/PageServer for data).
So, let’s say that you HATE cats--all the more reason to prevent them from having kittens. Jesus, if you hate 1 cat, certainly 25 is unbearable. If there is a FREE workshop in your neighborhood, you’d think that you’d wrangle up all the little monsters you could get your hands on.
Maybe you think, “it’s not my problem”. It costs approximately $125 PER animal OF YOUR TAX DOLLARS to euthanize these pets in the shelter. Still not your problem???
A lot of people tell me that only “parts” of San Antonio have an animal problem. Bullshit. I consider my neighborhood to be nice. I know for SURE that most of the people who live on my street don’t have their male dogs neutered because those dogs are CONSTANTLY digging out and running in my front yard. I will walk those dogs back to their owners and tell them that most animals stop having the urge to “roam” (or dig out of the backyard) if they are fixed. One lady has slammed the door in my face at least twice.

Come on San Antonio, fix your pets.

http://www.sanantonioferalcats.org/
http://animalresource.org/
http://ownupsa.com/
http://www.snapus.org/site/PageServer
http://www.trinity.edu/departments/p...0Alliance.html
http://library.stmarytx.edu/acadlib/circ/paw/What.HTML
http://www.utsacats.org/

I used to have that problem too but figured it out.

Idk if you are native to SA Brit, but you are dead on the nail head.
Had a german neighbor in the past that knew of SA when she was a kid.
That was in the 30s. She knew it as Dog Town. Still persist.

One little tidbit for you. If you have a feral colony of cats, the catch and release with neuter is the only way to control the population. If you were to trap and dispose of them in some way, another colony will establish itself.

Thanks for bring this up. I'm always disgusted seeing people ignore animals.

And I can't see why people buy them also. You can get a free one that'll love you the same. Breeding for $$$ makes me sick. That appllies to non-papered animals.

Proud owner of rescue pets only...

kudos brit for the thread! my babies are fixed. took some convincing (their father did not want them to go threw surgery) since they were always indoor pups. But then one got an infection in her uterus and almost died. (the vet warned him, Due to the age they were at risk)

Anyhow they are both fixed and he vowed never to think like that again.

Now we have to get over this custody battle. LOL

The infection you're talking about is called a pyometra. The whole uterus gets filled with PUS.

http://www.vetsurgerycentral.com/ima...a/pyometra.jpg

I bet that surgery cost you 3x what a normal spay would.
Did you kick your S.O.??? Poor pup, that's painful.

all my pets are fixed. i have 3 cats, and all of them were strays. i grew up taking care of strays. my mom always took in strays, got them fixed, and then found them homes. i can't tell you how many litters of kittens i've bottle fed over the years. i've seen too many abandoned animals and too many strays. currently there are a group of cats that keep having babies in my complex. i'm currently trying to catch them so i can at least get them fixed. anywho, just thought i would share my thoughts on this.

Stitches-
If you look at some of the links I provided at the top of my post, some of those organizations will help you trap those cats. They are called TRAP-NEUTER-RETURN groups. The groups realize that it is not YOUR fault that other people in your complex may are irresponsible and let their animals breed. So, they help you trap the cats, fix them for nothing (or almost nothing) and then release the cats.

Brit, part of the problem is a local mentality of : "I don't want to do that to my pet. It should be allowed to "experience" birth (or whatever)."
And another thing that keeps male pets from getting fixed is some weird macho thing that they don't want to remove their dogs balls. I have had this argument with many neighbors and coworkers.
I always encourage people to ONLY get shelter/rescue animals, and to fix them, and collar (with tags) and chip them.
Why is is so hard? What possesses these people to be so lazy or uncaring or stupid is hard to imagine.
With a lot of us, you are preaching to the choir. The other people conveniently either don't think we mean them, or they don't care that we mean them.

Always,
No food or water outside, you think you are helping but you are not. You must trap them humanly or you will get in trouble by the people that can help you most witch is the humane society ( you will be on their mailing list forever but worth it). They will neuter and vaccinate any animal you give up, or charge a small fee if you want to keep it. Defending your space by knowing your neighbors and their animals is key. As hard as it is to take, an unknown animal is just dangerous to all pets and not living a good life.