October 2, 2008Comments are closed.mandatory desexing
The mantra ‘desex! desex! desex!’ makes a lot of sense when your shelter is killing pets by the hundreds; so it’s almost a natural progression to start to think ‘if everyone was made desex their pets, then we wouldn’t have all these homeless pets to kill’. And it does seem like a solution when you see the same people time and time again, dropping off litters of kittens and picking up their entire dog after its escaped.
But is having the government make laws to force pet owners to desex their pets really the key to stopping the killing?
I’ve written about the problems with compulsory desexing of cats previously; mainly that 85 -90% of owned cats are already desexed and that the problem is being driven by the unowned and ‘semi-owned’ pusses. Compulsory desexing in this case would be a big-fat-cat-cull initiative and not something anyone interested in saving the lives of pets should support.
So what about dogs? Who keeps entire dogs and should we force them into getting their pet sterilised? Seems pretty obvious doesn’t it?
I can hear you nodding ‘yes’
But here’s the thing. A backyard breeder who wants to breed their dog will breed their dog. They’re either a law-follower and will seek to apply for the exemption offered to ‘breeders’ or they’re a law-flouter, and they’ll simply ignore the law.
There’ll always be jerks who flaunt the rules but now, with the risk of being turned in, said jerk is much less likely to do the other things that keep a dog healthy, like taking it for a walk, microchipping it or taking it to be vaccinated once a year. They’ll be less likely to visit the vet with their now pregnant dog so will just ‘let nature take its course’. And should these owners be caught and presented with a warning to desex or get a fine, they’ll just leave the dog at the pound. Because they’re jerks.
So this great plan to ‘punish the irresponsible owners’ into compliance, has done nothing but land us with a homeless dog and sent this person back out into the market to buy another pup. They won’t learn anything except to go even further ‘underground’ next time and their new pet is likely to suffer even worse as a result.
The other people who don’t desex (and who’ll be the majority of people caught up in this bad legislation) are the pet lovers who genuinely can’t afford to have their animals desexed. When faced with the option of desexing their animal or paying slowly increasing fines, you know which they can afford? Neither. So again, we rescuers, the ones pushing for this legislation to reduce the number of pets in pounds, have a just forced a pet owner to give up their dog.
When the heat dies down, or this disadvantaged owners is in a better financial position, being a pet-lover they’ll get another pet, but it won’t be a rescue. Rest assured people don’t buy their next pet from the people that took their last. They’re going to buy a puppy on the internet or through a pet shop and guess what? It won’t be desexed.
So, now instead of having one pet who would have been desexed if some assistance had been offered, we have two pets; a dead one at the shelter and a new one in the pet lovers home that still isn’t desexed.
Around and around it goes. More dogs killed, not less.
While it might feel good to bring in laws forcing people to do as we say, making shelters about pet seizures through laws that punish the poor is simply bad business. It won’t stop people being jerks, it won’t make people care for their pets any better and it certainly won’t lead to a single pet adoption.
The ‘only people like me deserve a pet’ ideology is alive and well in rescue. Not a day goes by when I don’t hear someone say “people who don’t desex are irresponsible” and “irresponsible owners need to be held accountable” – seems we’re all about judging and trashing people, not helping them.
But being a responsible pet owner isn’t as simple as lopping off a pair of testicles; it’s about training, socialisation and good pet care. Forcing otherwise good owners to give up their pets because “if you can’t afford desexing, then you’re irresponsible” is not about animal welfare, it’s simply prejudice deeming them ‘unworthy’ to own a pet. We need to start treating everyone as an individual and recognise that sometimes people simply need help to do the right thing, not to be shamed and punished for their situation.
If we want to do something to actually reduce the number of pets in pounds we need to look at what’s keeping people from doing what we want them to do and then help them do it.
Set up free desexing clinics and make it easy for people to access them. Work with local council to identify those people who might need some help and offer it to them. Move proactively to help your community be better pet people.
Mandatory desexing is all about trying to punish the jerks. But jerks will find a way to be jerks no matter what we do. We should instead put our energy, time and resources into trying to help those people who aren’t jerks, but who are simply doing it tough.
