A conspiracy theory...has science and the AVMA colluded to endorse early S/N?

I wouldn't have it done to my own dog before 18 months . On a personal , individual level for you or me, being capable of managing intact dogs, there is not a need.. & I am totally against mandatory spay neuter ADDED: (& even the ASPCA says there is no evidence such legislation helps reduce shelter kill rates. )

But looked at it from the broad perspective of the population issues and suffering caused by that, i can see why shelters s/n animals before sending them to new homes, including puppies and kittens, so they are not adopting out animals that then breed and the shelter maybe gets back 5 offspring from the 1 pet they adopted out

Unfortunately not everyone seems to be capable of managing intact pets, as we see every day on here including stories of accidental (or "accidental" ) pregnancies and people wanting to breed their poorly bred dog to some other poorly bred dog to sell "designer" mutts or yet more ". And there's suffering due to idiots irresponsibility breeeding with no health testing, no proper care for the b!+ch & pups, & sell/ give them to people without screening, or end up dumping them at the pound.

Yes there are still kill shelters but that is not evidence that there has been no progress. &. I do think the increase in spay /neuter including by shelters and by pet owners, helped by the increasing availablity of low cost spay neuter clinics, is likely a big part of the reason why shelter killing in the US has decreased since the 1970s when it was probably over 20,000 a year being killed. ( the first year there are national statistics was in 1985 and the number was 17 million . There are only stats for certain cities before that, but judging from those, the number was quite a bit higher in 1970 than the mid 80s. And in recent years it is now down to about 4 million with the majority being cats .) dogs estimated around a million.

ADDED -I will have to try track down where those numbers originally come from. The 1985 info I think was compiled by American Humane Assoc; The recent number is compiled from reports shelters make to the states ( that's how we know about PETAs 97% kill rate) or to other orgs. I think there really is a pretty broad agreement among people with long involvement in this incl. people who are no great fans of HSUS, that there has been a significant decrease in shelter intake & killing over the past few decades.

I am not suggesting that spay / neuter is the only reason. You are absolutely right that there are a lot more rescue groups around than there were in the 1970s and that has certainly also been a major factor.

Yes shelters sell animals to labs, but I really doubt that number has been greatly increasing since the 70s - 80s, since some places now have laws against it. & also I would guess the number of lab animals may be less than it was then, for various reasons

I just don't think that the part about the decrease in national intake AND kill rates less than a few decades ago is a big conspiracy, nor that s/n has played a role in that.. In some parts of the country where surveys have found s/n rates are very high, you can hardly even find puppies being turned in at shelters anymore & some shelters are transporting pups up from the South (where the s/n rate is lower)

ADDED, CONT. This is not to say I don't see something that DOES sometimes look like a sort of loose conspiracy to only tell people the positives to s/n Here is an article on that. "The unspoken truth about spaying and neutering our pets"

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2...

Nice theory, and you know how i feel about all the spay/neuter crap that everyone seems to love. This is going to sound completely irrelevant, however.....

"If early Spay Neuter is such an effective tool to stem pet overpopulation - why after 40+ years of use are we still in a huge mess?"

You could apply this sort of thing to a lot of things in life. Like the problem with drugs for example. While we have the best rehab facilities, drug councillors and drug detection police to date, the UK is still rife with drug users and drug induced crime. Why? The average human. People will do what they want, regardless of rules, problems, or what's supposedly best.

Now back to the subject: While neutering tiny puppies makes me heave, there is obviously no question that those dogs won't be adding to the problem in the future. However, there are tons of people that don't bother because they don't agree with it, they can't be bothered, or they WANT to breed their animals. People that do spay/neuter do so because they honestly believe it's for the best. You can see it from the answers in here. And once people truly believe something is right, it's nigh on impossible to change their mind. And that, i believe, applies to most people

I can't really answer the rest, doggy health and such isn't really my strong point!

ADD- Well i'm not really sure what went on in the 1930's, that's 5 decades before my time! lol

It's a straw man to claim that shelters 'conspire' to push early s/n "propaganda" in order to boost income.

Shelters often have an arrangement with a vet who performs services for the shelter at a discount in order to get the shelter's business and the referrals to the adopters.

Shelters often include the S/N fee in the adoption fee, maybe at a discount over retail, and probably at premium over what they're paying the vet. Business for the vet, revenue for the shelter.

Thing is - it would be more profitable for the shelter to leave the scheduling of the paid-for S/N up to the adopter, 8 weeks, 8 months, whenever, maybe even never. Some adopters won't follow through, maybe they'll go to their own regular vet, and cha-ching! the shelter retains the full S/N fee.

It's also a straw man to suggest that because early S/N doesn't solve dog overpopulation all by itself, that it is a "failed policy". It's not the policy, it's the deployment. It's not widely deployed enough to have more of an impact.

That said, I'm not for early S/N. I'm for the approach I outlined above. Make the adopter pay for it up front, and then let them decide when to do it. That's how the shelter I got my dogs from did it, that's how the shelter I volunteer for does it.

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Collusion seems like a strong word. :o)

I am not comfortable with juvenile S/N, no matter what they say.

However, I do not ascribe to the school of thought that attributes neutering to a number of medical ills, either. Every animal I have had in the last almost 50 years has been neutered, and I have seen none of the supposed problems associated with it.

I also do not agree with legally required neutering, because only the responsible will abide by the law, and those are not the people causing the problem in the first place.

I would like to see lost cost neutering programs, though. I think the cost (which is quite high where I live) is a deterrent.

If you were raised on a farm like I was you'd see how a stable cat population can explode once you take your eye off the ball. We had two and then within a couple of years it turned into more than 20 once they'd got loose in the barns. They had to be rounded up and the ones we kept, neutered.

Same thing can happen with BYB dog breeding and feckless opportunist owners. You'd end up with a massive feral dog population too... maybe they form pack and bite the *** of people with loony ideas?

If shelters let their breeding age dogs back out into the public they'd breed like rats again and there would be even less space in the shelters. Not just a no-brainer so much as a disingenuous argument.

S/N? Always a contentious issue but given that people expect to take responsibility for nothing these days then it is more necessary than ever.

I've had many spayed dogs and only one ever needed Proin, and the number with mammary cancer was zero.

The reason early spay/neuter isn't working (or spay/neutering at any age), is because the population of irresponsible dog owners and irresponsible breeders who purposely breed mutts as "designer dogs" is growing.

If you've been in the D/S on Y/A for long, you have surely seen the numerous questions DAILY of individuals asking for help because their mutt or pet quality purebred is about to give birth. Those questions NEVER stop coming. In those cases, I always push for emergency c-sections, or spay as soon as the puppies are weaned (although the damage has already been done).

Sure, spaying/neutering is a vets bread and butter to large extent, but having your dog spayed by the shelter vet is fairly minimal. And even though pet overpopulation is high, can you imagine how much worse it would be given the additional number of people and dogs over the last 40 years?! We would probably be euthanizing 100X the number of animals.

So, IF EVERYONE - with the exception of conscientious, reputable breeders actually had their dogs spayed at around 6 mths., the problem WOULD be solved. But as demonstrated here on this forum, that may never happen.

ADD: For me personally, I am not a fan of early spay/neuter. If I am going to neuter, I have females spayed after at least one heat and males at the age of approx. 18 mths. I believe that dogs need this time to mature physically and mentally. I actually hate to print this since some newbie dog owner of irresponsible dog owner is reading it. But, then I am NOT irresponsible. I have not problem supervising my animals so that breeding DOES NOT take place. And, as I said above, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to do just that! NEVER have and NEVER will have an accidental pregnancy in my dogs.

ADD:#2 A reputable breeder is easily definable. First they are extremely knowledgeable about their breed of dog and work toward bettering the breed at every opportunity. They are not in it to make money, but for true love of the breed. They exhibit their stock and title and health cert everything BEFORE they breed, They keep scrupulous records and stats. They provide health guarantees and buy-back contracts with every dog that leaves their kennel, and unless that breeder truly believes the dog she is selling has a chance at being titled and health certed - they are sold with AKC limited registration papers and those papers are held until the dog is spayed/neutered. And some of what you are speaking of with MSN (mandatory spay/neuter laws) that are being passed in certain communities. And, I even agree with Greek to a point, but only in a perfect world would that ever happen. We have to deal with reality.

Take a road trip down the Florida Turnpike or I-95 and stop at the rest areas at dusk. Stay in your car with lights out and watch all the cats and kittens come out of hiding to find food. Then ask yourself is spaying and neutering just for profit? Anyone who has seen this for themselves please write in so this person doesn't think this is propaganda too.

Still need more info? Please read on.

I love animals, not just dogs and cats, but most all domesticated pets need to be sterilized.

I have never seen many homeless animals up north, I suppose they don't survive the winters.

I live in Florida and down here I can find hundreds of feral cats and dogs daily. The induction of non indigenous pets including but not limited to feral dogs and cats are destroying our ecosystem, people have been letting their iguanas, snakes, guinea pigs, ferrets, and more loose in parks and neighborhoods. These poor animals are sometimes lost but most are abandoned because the owner thinks they are being humane(?)Are they too lazy to find a good home for their pet or are they afraid the shelter will put it down?

What is humane about leaving your pet in an area where they are forced to battle the elements, fight off predators (raccoons, gators, opossum, etc), fight for food, dodge cars and then those who were not spayed or neutered are breeding and now have to fight to keep their family alive! I used to be one of those bleeding hearts that would walk through the park and leave cat food for them and I had to stop because I was only contributing to the over population of feral cats and others.

I wish that all animal shelters were no-kill but that is idealistic. Does it have to be that way? Not if more people were willing to spay or neuter. There are "low cost spay and neuter facilities" available I paid $10.00 for a neuter $20.00 for Spay, and they will give a rabies shot for free in most places. If you cannot afford $20 bucks to spay / neuter how in the world do you feed it?

Do you know that most pets end up in shelters because the people who leave them there are not prepared to raise them to adults.

Unfortunately s/n is never going to stop the real problems

-Too many idiots breeding crap dogs

-Importing dogs into this country to fill demands on the shelter for specific animals

-Warehousing dogs indefinitely whether they are actually adoptable or not.

Regulating the first will always be an issue, but the second do can be fixed if people stop acting like all dogs can be saved. If people worried more about the dogs in this county, we put more dogs down and had more competent(clean house of idiots at all levels who aren't truly earning their paychecks) and well funded animal control we could resolve much of the problems we have.

Collusion may be too strong a word, tho it certainly be a disturbing trend. My local shelter automatically makes sure no dog is adopted from their facility that hasn't been "S/N'd" regardless of age.

I think that intellectually we must first look at the problem of overpopulation, and address the issue from that perspective. Perhaps a birth control shot??..

Its a way of telling people that they are stupid, but, they don't have to do anything about it, we will take all responsibility out of your hands by maiming your animals for life.

I maintain that if people were made to be responsible for what they do, none of this would be happening.

Why is it that in 33 years and several thousand dogs that have come through my hands, ALL INTACT, none ever mated? Why have I never had a litter?

Again, its a cash cow and this desire to save every damn dog ever born along with proving that people are indeed stupid...and these people accept it which proves they are stupid. Hope I helped.