plumcrazy

I managed a humane society for four years and hated, hated, hated the so-called "spay/neuter agreements"!! I was so happy when our board of directors mandated that every animal had to be spayed/neutered before it went home (inlcuding the 8 week old ones!)

I lost count of how many people squirmed their way out of the "agreement" by saying things like, "Oh, the cow stepped on that puppy - it died", "Oh, that puppy ran away the week we brought it home and we never found it again", "Oh, that puppy didn't work out for our family so we gave it away, and btw we don't know who we gave it to."

All of these "excuses" were covered in our contract in some way, but the people neglected to follow through (even *IF* the stories were remotely true). Being a very, very underfunded, understaffed facility there was no way we had the finances or the manpower to prosecute these people (and they knew it) so once we went to mandatory spay/neuter at adoption, they had no choice but to accept a pet that was already sterilized.

We did allow the adopters to choose the vet they wanted (within a reasonable distance from Bismarck - the furthest I had to travel was to a town about 30 miles away to drop off the dog at the vet) and they would pick up the newly spayed/neutered pet and pay the surgery fee.

I know that there are people who will still have a problem with the way we did things, but when you're "in the trenches" of animal welfare, sometimes the "best" way isn't possible when you're dealing with hundreds and hundreds of unwanted, abandoned, neglected, abused animals. We did the best we could with what we had and were able to place thousands of pets into good homes (and I'm sure we placed a few into homes that weren't so great - but people can be very deceiving when they want something) And we made sure our orphans weren't going to contribute to the already overburdened planet.

So - I believe pediatric spay/neuter has its place in the rescue/shelter world, but because in most instances a breeder has 6 - 10 puppies to place and they can cultivate relationships with the 6 - 10 families who will be taking their puppies in the at least 2 months of puppy development before they go home, the breeder should be able to get a reliable "read" on the people. When we had hundreds of animals to place every month, it wasn't as easy to cultivate that one-on-one relationship and trust that the person was truly who they said they were; and that they would do what they said they'd do.

A good, reliable, concerned breeder should be able to stay in close enough contact with their clients to assure spay/neuter compliance without requiring pediatric sterilization - IMHO.

bigpoodleperson

Wow, Really?! You are linking puppy spaying/neutering to Natzi Concentration Camps??!! That is just insane. Nice way to completely devalue the horror and experience of those survivers.



I agree that in the case of shelter animals that it is necessary. There is no way to control what they do with the puppy after it leaves their shelter. I am not a big fan of early spay/neuter, but i dont think it is the most horrible thing in the world. I see puppies everyday that are spayed/neutered at 6 months of age. They grow up just fine and lead happy, healthy lives. I agree with the studies, but i do Not think its the worst thing that could happen. There are risks and benefits to everything. Everytime a dog has a heat cycle their chance of mammory cancer hugely increases. I would rather my dog be a little taller and be spayed then risk that.

Marian

When I adopted my late cat Murphy from the Northeast Animal Shelter (Salem, MA), he was about 10-11 weeks old. I was given a voucher that would pay for him to be neutered around 6 months of age by a vet specified by the shelter (but near my house). By doing it this way, the shelter can monitor a lot of their adoptions because the vet will report to them who participated. If they look at their records after the six months have passed, and see that you have not redeemed your voucher, they can call you up and ask you why.

There are ways around everything, of course, but I think that by having adopters pay in advance for the service (which is included in the adoption fees), the likelihood that they will follow through is higher.

950

This is pretty much how its done here, depending on the shelter/rescue. Ofcourse we adopted our Terrier from a small rescue so they were able to follow up with all the adopters, plus it was a very thorough process to begin with just to adopt her. Our humane society ofcourse is how I explained above.

I feel there is no need to spay/neuter any dog before atleast 4 months of age (and I find that a little too young to beging with).

then again we live in a small rural area, and our shelters never have more than 5 or 6 dogs at a time. I don't know what its like in big cities and such


Our poodle came from a breeder (well I wouldn't call her that, she was just a woman who decided to breed her dog and sadly almost lost her dog in the process and my dog ended up being a rather sick pup). Anyways there was no neuter agreement with him.

My next dog (American Bulldog, most likely) is either coming from a good reputable breeder or a Bulldog rescue. I won't risk back yard breeders again. (didn't know what one was before we got our poodle)

Still I don't quite know what the OPs breeders reasoning is. You would think the health guarentee would be voided if the dog wasn't spayed/neutered by a year of age....not if the dog is spayed/neutered before.

Breeder sounds a little nuts if you ask me. Because she is either wanting it done before the pups leave or not until a year of age. If she doesn't want her pups bred, why wait until after they are a year of age?

Marian

In all the major animal shelters around here, if you're not looking to adopt a pit/pit mix or a chihuahua/chi mix, you're pretty much out of luck.

950

Around here everything is a Lab/Pit mix or a GSD/Husky mix in our shelters. We get a few hounds. The only small breeds we ever get in our shelter is Rat Terrier or Chihuahua mixes. Again though our local humane society only ever has about 6 dogs at a time. (Though they have room for up to 15 I believe) and we have a lot of breed specific rescues. We have a lot of Shetland Sheepdog Rescues, Boxer Rescues, and Husky Rescues. My favorite rescue to deal with though is the one that keeps all their dogs in foster homes....not a single dog is kept in a cage in an actual shelter. But I"m down at the Humane society a lot. I try to donate supplies whenever possible.

When I was volunteering at our local shelter, they told me about 98% of the dogs in the shelters in our part of state are Pit mixes, or have some Pit in them. Mostly because we are one of the few places that doesn't have BSL as major issue, so dogs from surrounding states and areas are actually brought up here.

Personally at our shelters the whole most of the dogs being mixed with Pit doesn't bother me, I love Bully breeds. But they are much harder to adopt out because you have to make sure they are going to the right type of family. There are a lot of people out there that will get them for the wrong reasons. The quickest dogs to go are the chihuahua mixes and anything with Lab or German Shepherd. The Pit mixes usually stick around a good 3 or 4 months. If they aren't adopted out in a decent amount of time I know our humane shelter holds on to them until they can place them in a bully breed or APBT rescue.


Sorry didn't mean to hijack the thread