WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT PET OVERPOPULATION
Pet overpopulation is a community problem that costs taxpayers hundreds of thousand of dollars each year, puts overwhelming burdens on area shelters and creates health and safety problems for neighborhoods.
An estimated 20,000 cats and dogs are euthanized each year in the Greater Kansas City and surrounding shelters. This is done at a significant cost to taxpayers and is a tragedy that can be decreased through targeted mass sterilization programs. Clearly the trends are not good, and action must be taken now to control future animal control costs and provide better care for the animals.
Adoption alone, while important, simply cannot solve the problem. The number of animals entering the shelters (intake) must be reduced! Spaying and neutering the animals most likely to contribute to pet overpopulation is essential to reducing intake, euthanasia and other animal control costs. Those high-risk animals include:
- Litters of kittens and mixed breed pups and their mothers
- Non-neutered pets (who are more likely to roam and be aggressive than neutered pets)
- Unlicensed and unvaccinated pets
- Pets of lower income resident
Spay and Neuter Kansas City (SNKC) is a 501c3 organization, formed in 2002 to reduce pet overpopulation through spay and neuter. SNKC provides subsidized low-cost surgery for pet owners who cannot afford the surgery. SNKC's approach is to:
- Target pet-overpopulation in low-income, trouble-prone areas of the county
- Screen clients based on their income
- Work with the local Animal Control departments and veterinarians in order to vaccinate and neuter the animals at highest risk of contributing to pet overpopulation.
The solution
Animal experts state that spaying and neutering 70% of the animals in a problem area within a few breeding cycles will show significant results.1 The target area must be addressed and surgery performed quickly because of the high reproductive rate of pets.
Animal Control has identified the small geographic areas that produce nearly 80% of animal control calls. These areas tend to be the lower-income areas of the county and have a lower rate of compliance with rabies vaccination and licensing requirements and spay/neuter recommendations than do more affluent areas.
SNKC targets these troubled areas in its marketing efforts, offering discounted or free rabies vaccinations and spay/neuter surgery to pet owners with financial need. Animal Control uses its enforcement power to create incentives for pet owners to utilize SNKC's services and have their pets vaccinated, neutered and licensed. SNKC ensures that all pets receiving surgery are either current on rabies vaccinations, or SNKC provides that rabies vaccination to the animal.
SNKC does not provide subsidized surgery to those who can afford such services, nor does it provide comprehensive veterinary care to pets. It targets a market previously unserved by veterinarians.
It is a well-known fact that non-neutered pets are much more likely to roam and to be aggressive than non-neutered pets. Statistics show that an intact male dog is 6.2 times more likely to bite or be aggressive than a spayed or neutered dog. 2
With more neutered pets, there will be fewer litters, less roaming and fewer cases of aggression. Future costs of Animal Control will be contained. Animal Control resources could be used to improve response time, and to focus efforts on bite prevention, humane education and adoption of shelter animals.
Spaying, neutering and vaccinating this many pets will be expensive, but experts state that for every community dollar spent on spaying and neutering, the result is a cost savings of three dollars on expenses in the future.
Spay and Neuter Kansas City's goal is to continue to provide free and low-cost spay and neuter services to those who cannot otherwise afford it, with an emphasis on breeds that present potential safety issues to neighborhoods. We will also direct residents who can afford the surgery to private veterinarians.
The more we can spay and neuter, the more we can curb the increase of animals entering shelters, bite cases and trouble calls. We hope to ultimately see a decrease in such numbers. Our organization is committed to:
- Continue to dramatically increase spay and neuter efforts in our targeted areas
- Increase public support and awareness of pet-overpopulation.
- Work with local animal control departments to provide affordable spay and neuter solutions to pet owners in need.
- Seek financial support from our community.
- Build a strong network with other animal welfare organizations.
- Improve public safety for our communities by decreasing bites and increasing rabies vaccination and licensing compliance.
- Create strong education programs for today's youth to change the future of animal welfare.
It will take our entire community to help improve animal welfare in Kansas City. We must work together to make indiscriminately breeding unacceptable in our society, promote spay and neutering as an effective means in decreasing pet overpopulation and help make adoption more likely for a shelter pet then death.
Please be a part of the spay and neuter movement! Get involved by volunteering with our organization or donating to help spay and neuter a pet in need.
Thank you,
Michelle Dormady
President and Executive Director
Spay and Neuter Kansas City
- Dr. Marvin Mackie article http://www.animalmission.org/public/files/docs/70_percent.pdf
- Gershman KA, Sacks JJ, Wright JC. Which dogs bite? A case-control study of risk factors. Pediatrics 1994; 93:913-917.
- Solutions to Overpopulation of Pets. Peter Marsh and New Hampshire state wide spay and neuter program data.
PET OVERPOPULATION STATISTICS
According to the Humane Society of the United States
- Two unaltered cats and all their descendents can theoretically number 420,000 in just seven years
- Two unaltered dogs and all their descendents can theoretically number 67,000 in just six years.
- "No homes for littermates" is one of the top ten reasons people relinquish their cats and dogs to shelters.
- An estimated 5 million cats and dogs are killed in shelters each year. That's one about every six and one half seconds.
- The top reason both cat guardians and dog guardians give for not having their pet altered is that they simply have not bothered to do it yet.
- Twenty percent of cat guardians think their cat is too young to be altered, and 18% say they are not able to afford spay/neuter surgery.
- Twenty-one percent of dog guardians want to breed their dog, and 13% think their dog is too young to be altered.
- Tens of millions of stray and feral cats struggle to survive on their own outdoors. Although some are altered and live in managed colonies, most are not altered and receive no health care. They reproduce at will and many suffer from illness or injury before dying.
- Over half (56%) of dog guardians and nearly two-thirds (63%) of cat guardians rank pet overpopulation as the most important pet issue.
- In a study of relinquishment of cats and dogs in 12 U.S. animal shelters, 30% of the surrendered dogs were purebreds.
- The same study indicated that 55% of the surrendered dogs and 47% of the surrendered cats were unaltered.
- It costs U.S. taxpayers an estimated $2 billion each year to round up, house, kill, and dispose of homeless animals.
- Over 56% of dogs and puppies entering shelters are killed, based on reports from over 1,055 facilities across America.
- Approximately 71% of cats and kittens entering shelters are killed, based on reports from 1,055 facilities across America.
The Humane Society of the United States Pet Overpopulation Facts (1999) | National Council on Pet Population Study and Policy?The Top Ten Reasons for Pet Relinquishment to Shelters in the United States | The State of the American Pet?A Study Among Pet Owners. Prepared by Yankelovich Partners for Ralston Purina, October 2000. | Alley Cat Allies. | Alley Cat Rescue | Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science, 1998, Volume 1, Number 3, p. 213 | USA Today, June 23, 1998, pg. 1 | National Council on Pet Population Study and Policy?Shelter Statistics Survey (1997 data) |
