Such mixed emotions as I watch our sweet little foundling dog growing up. This coming into "season" or her "heat period," as my nine-year-old refers to it, is new to me. I realize that I have never been the companion to a non-sterilized dog before. Existing in a culture of well-meaning dog owners, rescuers, and shelter workers who have promulgated spaying and neutering our dogs (and cats) as a solution to the rampant killing that has gone on for decades in shelters all over the country in answer to supposed pet overpopulation, I find myself feeling a bit guilty. Though it has been relatively easy to keep Miss Kelley confined, to walk her on leash, and to clean up her occasional leakages, the very act of letting her grow to a sexually mature dog is new and mildly uncomfortable. I do remind myself, however, that if we were to save her one $3500 knee surgery, we have helped her immeasurably and are well paid to manage whatever trials and tribulations accompany getting her through her first "period."
All kinds of questions pop up for me around this issue. If spaying and neutering is the cornerstone of stemming the tide of unwanted pets, why isn't it working? Why do millions of animals still find themselves at the pound or the shelter and why are so many killed there? Don't we sterilize them to prevent this problem? Why is the No-Kill movement minimized and marginalized? Reading Redemption: The Myth of Pet Overpopulation and the No-Kill Revolution in America, really put my thinking cap in a twist. In his book, Nathan J. Winograd chronicles the history of the humane movement in the U.S., its shift to managing municipal pounds, thereby taking on the killing of so-called unwanted animals by the millions, the movement's entrenched resistance to the concept of No-Kill, and its only recent shift to trying to save more animal lives (witness especially the vitriolic opposition from major national humane organizations to Trap/Neuter/Release (TNR) programs for feral cats, until extremely recently). I maintain that we could save a boatload of animal lives and prevent tremendous animal suffering by focusing efforts on eliminating puppy-mills and backyard breeders.
On top of the medical problems that can be caused by sterilizing at the wrong time, concerns about whether this prong of our approach to curbing the tide of unwanted pets is actually working (Winograd claims that there is not so much a pet overpopulation problem as a lack of will to stop killing pets, though he is assuredly a proponent of sterilizing companion animals) niggles at my brain. I wonder too, do we sterilize our dogs for our comfort and convenience? Are we reluctant to have our "babies" growing up, preferring instead to hold them forever in a state of juvenile development? Does our society's complicated and messy relationship with sexuality play into this issue more than we know?
I intend fully to have our lovely dog spayed in time. It will help to prevent reproductive cancers for her, and frankly, we don't want puppies, or the ongoing work of preventing them, and I can't help but think that if we don't create more puppies ourselves, we'll be available to adopt the cast-offs and throwaways of others.
Currently, I am rattling about in the uncomfortable space between one way of knowing and another. Confident that no "unwanted" pups will be set forth from our homestead, I'm curious to see how Kelley grows and develops. And I am looking with new eyes at our whole approach to the problems of abandoned and stray dogs and cats (and other critters as well).
I have to admit, I'm looking for a little redemption.
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