Spaying and neutering real answer to animal problem

TO THE EDITOR:

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated,” Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948). I think the same applies to a county!

Instead of encouraging the construction of a “county-run dog pound” why did the Southern Standard not encourage responsibility on the part of the citizens of Warren County? No matter how large the facility, or their budget, shelters do little to solve the pet overpopulation problem. Animal control facilities only encourage irresponsibility and perpetuate the problem by sending the message to the citizens “bring us all the pets that you don’t want to be responsible for and we will gladly kill them for you.”

Even people who are not concerned that 7,000 animals were killed by the Humane Society in 18 months surely care about how their taxes are spent. Spaying and neutering will solve the pet overpopulation problem and save taxpayer dollars.

New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island have had pet registration, leash laws and spay/neuter ordinances in effect for a while now and many of their citizens are educated enough to know the value of a companion animal. These states do not have a stray dog problem.

Most of their shelters have a 90 percent adoption rate instead of a 90 percent kill rate as we have here. Isn’t it about time we tried a different approach to our pet overpopulation problem?

To keep doing the same thing over and over knowing it will not work is insane. We will never solve this problem by killing homeless pets.

I don’t understand why any reporter would have written the editorial that was in the Southern Standard on July 31. To compare handling our homeless animals to handling our garbage is unconscionable.

It does not surprise me at all that individuals and industry do not want to relocate to Warren County. If our county leaders do not have the foresight to enact spay/neuter ordinances and pet registration for the sake of ending the slaughter of homeless animals and saving taxpayer dollars, we need to clean house in the next election.
Villa Mitchell
Crisp Springs Rd.
McMinnville