Community Voices
03. Apr, 2008 
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Why I Proposed a Spay and Neuter Ordinance
By Keith Bohr
Mayor Pro-Tem, Huntington Beach, California
I have had a few former elected officials over the past few months advise me that one should not meddle when it comes to people’s children or their animals. Definitely information I could have used a year or more ago!
So why did I propose the City of Huntington Beach adopt a “Mandatory Spay Neuter Chip” Ordinance?
A quick look at the numbers:
Six million cats and dogs in the United States are euthanized each year. In California approximately 800,000 dogs and cats end up in taxpayer-funded shelters every year and more than half are euthanized at a cost of more than a quarter of a billion dollars.
Orange County Animal Care Services, contracting with 21 cities, including Huntington Beach, picked up 29,690 stray animals in 2006. Despite commendable efforts by the county to reunite these animals with their owners, or to adopt them out to new owners, the county still had to euthanize more that 12,000 dogs and cats that year. Huntington Beach, which pays the County approximately $400,000 annually for animal control, accounted for more than 1,500 dogs and cats that were picked up, and 40 percent of those were euthanized.
We are killing too many of our pets!
Most of the opponents of “Mandatory Spay and Neuter” (MSN) are from the “breeder” community. They are unrelenting and usually less than honest in their stated rationale against such a proposal. They implore the “kitchen sink” strategy of throwing anything and everything up against the wall, hoping something will stick. The bottom-line is, although most of them agree we do kill too many of our pets, they argue against any form of a MSN ordinance and are content with the status quo.
Their “kitchen sink” approach goes something like this:
- MSN is a bad policy because it is unenforceable and irresponsible owners will continue to be irresponsible (unless you make it illegal to be irresponsible);
- service dogs, police dogs and show dogs will vanish (completely false since they are all legally exempt from MSN);
- the only dogs in shelters are old dogs turned in by their owners and the rest are pit bulls (currently there are 50 dogs at the County’s shelter of which 27 are two years old or younger and only 11 are pit bull or pit bull mix);
- this is just more “nanny government” proposal (we are a community of laws for the better good);
- and “My pet is my property, nobody should be able to tell me what I can and cannot do with my property.” (Hello Mr. Vick?).
Other potential solutions? Huntington Beach and other cities could build their own “no kill” shelters. But analysis indicates that to serve a population of approximately 200,000 people, 3.5 – 4.5 acres of land would be required. Studies state that the net cost to operate such a facility would be in the range of $7.00 per capita or $1.4 million paid by the city’s 200,000 residents.
The study I read did not address the cost of construction of the shelter itself. I estimate that for a 10,000 square foot facility at $200 per square foot it would cost at least $2 million.
In addition to building and operating costs, we need to address the cost of purchaseing the land for a city owned shelter, which at market rate would be in the range of $6-8 million.
All said and done the City of Huntington Beach would need approximately $8-10 million to build a new facility and another $1.4 million annually to operate it. That makes the $400,000 Huntington Beach pays the county each year seem like a bargain in comparison.
One enthusiastic proponent of having Huntington Beach build and operate its own local shelter suggested that we could get the land for free! Huh? Sure, just use some of the land the city owns in Central Park. Say what?!? Did you not see what we all suffered through in order to narrowly get voter approval for building a new senior center in an undeveloped portion of Central Park? No thank you!
As usual with complicated issues there are no easy solutions, only difficult and expensive ones.
In any case, please seriously consider spaying or neutering as well as micro chipping your pets. And if you want to add a pet to your family, please visit one of the many local shelters and/or rescue groups before considering making a purchase from a pet store or breeder. Go to www.ocpetinfo.com for more information.
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I strongly oppose Mandatory Spay/Neuter, although I’m not a breeder. In fact, the last dog we added to our family came from a shelter. Mr. Bohr addresses 5 reasons for opposing Mandatory Spay/Neuter (referred to as “kitchen sink” items) that clearly indicate a lack of understanding of this issue on his part.
Point #1: Per Mr. Bohr, the fact that MSN is unenforceable and irresponsible owners will continue to be irresponsible is not valid because “you make it illegal to be irresponsible”.
Well, if this were true drunk driving, child abuse, murder, tax evasion and drug abuse would not be pervasive in our society. All of the above are illegal AND irresponsible, yet clearly exist.
Point #2: Service dogs/police dogs/show dogs will not be extinct because ALL are exempted under MSN legislation.
To date, all proposed (and some passed) MSN legislation has not granted automatic and definite exemptions to the above categories of dogs. Rather, complicated and convoluted criteria for exemption is written into the legislation, and the animal control authorities have the discretion of NOT granting intact licenses should they choose not to.
Point #3: Per Mr. Bohr, opponents to MSN claim only old dogs and pit bulls exist in the shelter.
This is a clear misunderstanding of the opposition’s point by Mr. Bohr. The point being made is that in order to meet the public’s demand for purebred dogs (especially rare breeds), responsible breeders MUST exist as these types of dogs will not be found at the local shelter. While the shelter is a wonderful place to find a family pet, it does not meet the demand of those seeking most purebred dogs, especially puppies.
Point #4: MSN is not “Nanny state” government; we are a community of laws for the better good.
“Community of Laws” for the better good is a euphemism for socialism. The USA was built on personal liberties. Enough said!
Point #5: Mr. Bohr makes a reference to Michael Vick (convicted dog fighter) regarding those those feel their dogs are their personal property.
Crimes can be committed with personal property. My car is considered my personal property, if I drive it into a crowd and kill people, should we enact legislation to make it illegal to own cars?
Mr. Bohr has obviously bought the Animal Rights extremist movement hook, line and sinker. It is up to us, the dog loving public, to NOT put legislators like this in office that threaten our rights to own and love dogs.
Taking people’s property without due process of law is considered to still be UN-Constitutional! Pets are property – even tho PETA and H$U$ would like that to change! As property, it it up to the owner and the animal’s vet to decide if and when to castrate or hysterectomy! A politico has NO business making that decision – that’s basically illegal – as it’s practicing medicine without a license!
No – Keith – your area does NOT have a problem. In fact – have you seen this storyhttp://www.cna.com.tw/cnaeng/EnglishTopNews/TopNewsDetail.aspx?strTopNewsDate=&TopNewsSerialnum=677&strTopNewsID=200804020050
– - appalling!!!!! : (
How come – if there’s such an overabundance of dogs here – we have groups “rescuing” disabled ones in Taiwan and bringing them here????
There are so many flaws in this man’s article I cannot address them all. The first two respondents have done a very good job of dispelling his “myths” But as the owner of a bull breed I must take exception with the Mike Vick statement. We all love our pets. There is nodpubt about that. Dog fighting ( in case the author hasn’t noticed.. or does not know) IS AGAINST THE LAW. That is what Vick was found guilty of . He was not found guilty of having an intact pet, which is what the author is suggesting should happen to those of us who care to keep our pets intact ( and on leashes)
This is PETA speak.. to associate an intact animal and our right to own one with a criminal like Vick.. don’t buy it.
Mandatory spay/castrate has NEVER worked anywhere.
Ther are POSITIVE solutions to this problem, like the elimination of “pet limits” allowing for more animals to leave the shelter ALIVE and free spay/castrate for ALL citizens who desire it. Like having a place on the tax return to fund the clinics by allowing citizens to donate . More “adoption” fairs.. and most of all.. PROMOTING the adoption of pit bulls and pit bull mixes who make up the majority of dogs killed in shelters. Many fo these dogs die every day that could easily be placed in loving homes were it not for the MEDIA .
Stop Breed Specific Legislation and Fight against MANDATORY spay/castrate laws. SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL SHELTER. Donate a free spay or neuter today!!!!!!
And Bob Barker.. come on down.. show us the MONEY.. Donate two years of free spay/ neuter and two fully equiped mobile vans to travel in the poorest sections of the state…I challenge Bob Barker to put his money where is mouth is.. and Mr. Boher you too.. how about a healthy doantion to your local shleter.. on a monthly basis.. say $5,000 per month.. You can do it.. get you friends at PETA and the H$U$ to help.. that is if PETA is not busy killing the 97% of the animals it takes in..
Friends don’t let friends donate to PETA or the H$U$.. Support your LOCAL shelter
A mandatory spay/neuter law cannot hope to impact shelter numbers if it does not address the reasons animals enter the shelters in the first place.
“Orange County Animal Care Services, contracting with 21 cities, including Huntington Beach, picked up 29,690 stray animals in 2006.”
There’s a lot of information missing from this statement.
How many of the animals were dogs? Is it possible that lack of enforcement of existing (leash) laws is at least part of the problem here?
How many of these strays were feral cats? Mandatory spay/neuter doesn’t work for those animals.
What was the reproductive status of those stray animals? What as the reproductive status of the strays who were reunited with their owners? Other areas report that 70-80% of owned animals are already spayed/neutered, without a government-mandated medical procedure that has significant long-term health risks for the animals.
How many owned animals are there in Orange County – what percentage does this 29,690 represent?
How many of these strays were puppies under 8 weeks of age, which would likely have been whelped on the street?
Currently the euthanasia rate in the US is 3.75 million which is a 90 percent decrease in 30 years. Of this number two-thirds are cats. The number of euthanized animals will never be zero as all animals die and many are taken by their owners to shelters to do so. It is a logical and simple fallacy to say that euthanasia can be curtailed just by stopping the birthrated. In fact, in order to further reduce euthanasia a broad-brush measure like MSN is a totally ineffective approach.
Only a very small percentage of the animal population is responsible for excess birthing. The pet public has throughly embraced VOLUNTARY S/N and that includes the breeders who sell to pet owners requiring it for the pets they sell. Better to identify and HELP the small percentage of the animals (many of whom are unowned cats) than to initiate coercive legislation that is both ineffective and unenforceable.
There is a nationwide SHORTAGE of pups and small dogs and they are being imported to the US by the hundreds of thousands (Center for Disease control said 300K last year). Cats now make up a larger percentage of shelter intake. Scientific control (you have to alter 70% of feral cat populations) of UNOWNED cats is necessary now as almost all owned cats are altered. Cat and dog issues are different and each species finds itself in shelters for different reasons. Solutions are different for cats and dogs. With the cat population growing from UNOWNED cats, MSN would do nothing.
Legislators like Bohr may have good intentions, but they lack knowledge and fall for the faulty arguments of animal rights proponents who have a goal to make pet ownership obsolete. There are several fallacies in his bullet points alone, and I consider it disingenuous to equate breeders wishing to maintain control over the health and reproductive capacity of the animals they own with dog fighters. You reveal yourself as a puppet of PETA and HSUS when you say something like this.
And yes, it is undeniably nanny government. Voluntary S/N is considered one of the most successful behavioral change movements of the last 50 years, so why does the government think it needs to stick its nose between our pet’s legs when the only pet owners who don’t want litters are unable to AFFORD S/N. Control of feral cats and low-cost clinics would be cheaper and save more lives than MSN.
You may have good intentions Mr. Bohr, but you jumped on a bandwagon that is rolling along on faulty science and the hidden agenda of those who would force us all to adopt their view of a world without any animal use, including food, entertainment, research, service and companionship.
Organizations like PETA and HSUS are tapping into small town council and board members like you Mr. Bohr and selling you a bad bill of goods. They have nothing but commotion and emotion and a mantra of “Stop the killing”. We all want to stop the killing, but those who clearly understand the what, why, and wherefore of the killing know that it is an appealing and simple, but logical fallacy to think that MSN in a local community is the way to do it.
That MSN can stop the killing is the “BIG LIE” snuck in the backdoor by PETA and HSUS and legislators like you Mr. Bohr are being used in the process.