Why Spay or Neuter Your Pets?

Billions of dollars are spent each year to pick up, house and eventually kill our nation's homeless animals. Every day, animal shelters face budget cuts and hiring freezes while struggling to accommodate the volume of animals coming in to their facilities.

There is an answer to the pet overpopulation crisis and that answer is aggressive, targeted, high quality, low cost spay and neuter. Only by preventing the births can we begin to prevent the deaths. Expanding shelters to allow for the increase of incoming animals has not only proven to be cost and labor intensive but also has been ineffective at addressing the problem. By more effectively allocating resources towards sterilization, savings can then be utilized to enhance behavioral rehabilitation, owner retention and adoption matching programs and increase the adoptability of pets already in the shelters. It also leaves additional funds available to expand medical treatment services for pets in need and offer assistance to families unable to afford adequate care for their family pet.

Top 3 Reasons To Spay/Neuter

1. It helps to reduce companion animal overpopulation.
   Most countries have a surplus of companion animals and are forced to euthanize or disregard their great suffering.
   The surplus is in the millions in the United States.
   Cats are 45 times as prolific, and dogs 15 times as prolific, as humans. They do not need our help to expand their numbers; they need our help to reduce their numbers until there are good homes for them all.
2. Sterilization of your cat or dog will increase his/her chance of a longer and healthier life.
   Altering your canine friend will increase his life an average of 1 to 3 years, felines, 3 to 5 years. Altered animals have a very low to no risk of mammary gland tumors/cancer, prostate cancer, perianal tumors, pyometria, and uterine, ovarian and testicular cancers.
3. Sterilizing your cat/dog makes him/her a better pet, reducing his/her urge to roam and decreasing the risk of contracting diseases or getting hurt as they roam.
   Surveys indicate that as many as 85% of dogs hit by cars are unaltered.
   Intact male cats living outside have been shown to live on average less than two years.
   Feline Immunodeficiency Syndrome is spread by bites and intact cats fight a great deal more than altered cats.

*From SpayUSA

Additional Benefits

Your community will also benefit. Unwanted animals are becoming a very real concern in many places. Stray animals can easily become a public nuisance, soiling parks and streets, ruining shrubbery, frightening children and elderly people, creating noise and other disturbances, causing automobile accidents, and sometimes even killing livestock or other pets. The capture, impoundment and eventual destruction of unwanted animals costs taxpayers and private humanitarian agencies over a billion dollars each year. As a potential source of rabies and other less serious diseases, they can be a public health hazard.