Many of us take for granted the facts of pet overpopulation, but others may not be completely aware of the devastating consequences of a single unplanned litter of puppies or kittens. If you are overpopulation  litter-ate,  we urge you to pass along this article to someone who could benefit from it; if you are not, we urge you to take heed

Donald, Rhonda Lucas

Rindy, Kate

English

WBI Studies Repository (WellBeing International)

his seniority, took her turn. Later, Roadcat would come by and finish whatever was left. But the rhythm fultered. There always was something in the dish at the end of the day. And sometimes he ate nothing after I ladled out the food. His face was thinning a bit, and his coat lost a little of its sheen. I was about to make an appointment at the veterinarian's when one morning he did not appear for his dawn excursion. It was his custom to come lie near my pillow at first light and wait for me to rise and let him out. The routine was invariant, and the morning it was broken I felt an unpleasant twinge in my stomach. I searched the house and found him ly-ing in a chair in the back bedroom upstairs. I knelt down beside him, spoke softly, and ran my hand over his fur. He purred quietly, but something was not right. While waiting for the vet's office to open, I remembered the previous evening. He had seemed strangely restless. He would get on my lap, then down again, then return for another cycle of the same thing. He did that five times, and I remarked to my wife that it was something of a record. The last time he walked up to my chest and rubbed his cheek against mine. Though he was always pleasantly affectionate, such a gesture was a little out of the ordinary. He was trying to tell me that something was amiss, that it was almost over. The initial diagnosis was a kidney prob-lem, which is not unusual in older animals. After a few days, we brought him home. He was terribly weak and could scarcely walk. I laid him on a wool poncho, where he stayed the entire night. In the morning, I carried him to his litter box in the basement and set him down by it. He seemed disoriented and stumbled. I noticed his right leg was limp and curled underneath him when he sat. Back to the doctor. An X-ray disclosed a large tumor around his heart, which had resulted in a stroke the previous night that paralyzed his right side and left him blind. Wayne Endres is a kind and patient man, but I could see he was working at the edge of his technology. The following day, a Wednesday, Wayne called with his report. If it had only been a stroke, we might have worked our way out of it, even though cats don't recover from such things easily. But clearly, the tumor was large and growing, and there was little to be done. It was up to me, of course. But Wayne's quiet voice carried the overtones of despair when he said, "Roadcat is not do-24 ing well." He refused to offer hope. There wasn't any, and Wayne Endres is an honest man. Here, at this point, the thunder starts, and civilizations that are normally parallel begin to intersect and become confused. Roadie and I shared a common language of trust, respect, and love, made visible by touching and aural by our private mutterings to one another. But, as it should be, the language of caring is a language of imprecision and is not designed for hard and profound choices. I had no set of alternatives rich enough to evade the issue and none available that could even ameliorate it. And how could I understand what decision rules lay beating softly in the imprints of Roadcat's genetic spirals? For all I knew, they might be supe-rior to mine, probably were, but I could not tell. I know how I want to be treated under those dire conditions. But what right did I have to assume that so ancient a civiliza-tion as Roadcat's bears the same values as mine? How could I presume to judge when the standards are someone else's and I had not been told? Surely, though, notions of dignity and suf-fering must be common to all that lives, whether it be rivers or butterflies or those who laugh and hold your hand and lie with you in autumn grass. So, gathering myself as best I could, I drove slowly through a red and yellow sunset toward Wayne Endres's clinic. Someone once defined senti.11entality as too much feeling for too small an event. But events are seldom small when you're deal-ing with true companions. My friend and colleague from all the years and gentle moments lay on a table with white cloth-like paper under him. I sat down, and at the sound and smell of me, he raised his head, straight up came his ears, and his nose wrinkled. Though the room was brightly lit, his brain kept sending a false message of darkness, and the pupils of his green eyes dilated to the maximum as he strained for the light. He had lost half his body weight. I touched him along the neck, and there was a slight sound. He was trying to purr, but fluid in his throat would not allow it. Still, he wriggled his nose and tried to send all the old signals he knew I would recognize. I nodded to Wayne and put my face next to that of my friend, trying somehow to con-vey the anguish I suffered for him and for myself, for my ignorance of right and wrong, and for my inability to know what he might want in these circumstances. I spoke softly to him, struggling with des-perate intensity to reach far and across the boundaries of another nation, seeking either affirmation or forgiveness. When all that is linear failed me, I called down the old language of the forest and the plains to tell him, once and finally, of my gratitude for his simply having been. And I wondered, as did S. H. Hay, "How could this small body hold/So immense a thing as death?" Eventually, his head lowered, and it was done. Georgia and I carried him home in a blanket and buried him in the woods along one of the trails where he earned his living. For some days after, I swore I would never go through that again. If it came to eutha-nasia, I would refuse to be present. I have changed my mind. You owe that much to good companions who have asked for little and who have traveled far and faithfully by your side. Roadcat didn't just live with us. He was a spirited participant in the affairs of our place. He was kind to us, and we to him. I remember, when I came home in the even-ings, how he would move down the wood-land path toward me, grinning, riding along on his little stiff-legged trot, tail held high with a slight curl at the tip. I'd hunker down, and we would talk for a moment while he rolled over on his back and looked at me, blinking. Georgia and I put the shovel away, walked back into the darkness, and stood by the lit-tle grave. By way of a farewell, she said, "He was a good guy." Unable to speak, I nodded and thought she had said it perfectly. He was, indeed, a good guy. And a true friend and colleague who rode the great ar-row with me for a time, helping me turn the pages in some old book while the wood stove quietly crackled its way through the winter afternoons of Iowa. • Robert James Willler, professor of manage-ment at the University of Northern Iowa, is a writer, photographer, and musician whose essays deal with the natural environment and other topics. His book of essays, Just Beyond the Firelight, was published by the Iowa State University Press in 1988 and is now in its second printing. • • • Reprinted with permission from Iowa State University Press, Ames, Iowa, from Just Beyond the Firelight, 1988, hardcover, $16.95. For orders: ISU Press, 2121 S. State Avenue, Ames, /A 50010; (515) 292-0155. HSUS NEWS • Fall 1990 JUST ONE LITTER Cindy forgot that the apartment repairman was coming to fix her sliding glass door that day. She forgot to confine her sev-en-month-old kitten in the bed-room. When she got home from work, there Kali was, waiting for her out-side under a pine tree. ''Thank goodness you 're okay," she sighed. A week or so later, the kitten is putting on weight. She is pregnant. What a disap-pointment, Cindy thinks. She had been wait-ing for Kali to go through one heat cycle before she had her spayed-she'd always heard that was best. But Cindy isn't wor-ried about finding homes for the kittens. She will just take them into the clothing store where she works and put them in the window. Cats have surpassed dogs as the most popular pets in the United States, with 30.6 million households owning cats. As a result of this surge in interest, the number of cats entering animal shelters has also dramati-cally increased. Given the rate at which cats reproduce, it becomes clear why there are so many homeless cats. For example, if Cindy's cat were allowed to breed at will, it could be the source of 420,000 cats in goes out. Six months later, Kali 's kittens are all in homes and have matured. The striped female who went to the mother with two children is no longer kitten-cute, and the kids don't pay as much attention to her anymore. She is left outside and out of the way most of the time. When she delivers 5 kittens, the family puts a free-kitten ad in the paper. Luckily, a man is interested in all 5. He says he wants to use them as barn cats on his property. In fact, he sells the kit-tens to a local dealer, who sells them to a research facility. The family does not have the mother cat spayed. Every day, the newspapers are filled with classified "free pet" ads. Many of the peo-ple seeking to give away litters of puppies and kittens find success-they find "good" homes for each one in their litter. They think the book is closed once the last puppy or kitten leaves with its new owner, that the problem is solved. It isn't. In a recent case in DeKalb County, Georgia, a man was convicted of torturing and killing 77 cats. He admitted to tortur-ing the felines and later photographing their remains. He kept detailed records of each eat's acquisition, appearance, behavior, and treatment in a log he dubbed "TCJHTD"-"This Cat Just Had To Die." This man ob-tained cats through newspaper ads for free kittens. The family that took the black male kit-ten say he's a great cat. They let him out BY KATE periodically, especially since it's summer. Now that the cat is eight months old only seven years. But 420,000 is not the root of the pet -overpopulation problem. Kali's one litter is. RINDY and sexually active, he ------------- spends a great deal of time J#?ll, the kittens are a real AND success. All 4 find good --------------homes in one week. Cindy RH 0 NDA roaming the neighborhood looking for receptive females. One day his excur-sions take him across a highway, where a car strikes decides to get her cat LUCAS DONALD spayed, but she's in no hurry. After all, Kali never HSUS NEWS • Fall 1990 him. He is left to die near Many of us take for granted the facts of pet overpopulation, but others may not be completely aware of the devastating consequences of a single unplanned litter of puppies or kittens. If you are overpopulation "lit-ter-ate," we urge you to pass along this ar-ticle to someone who could benefit from it; if you are not, we urge you to take heed. 25 Many of the people seeking to give away litters of puppies and kittens ... think the book is closed once the last puppy or kit-ten leaves with its new owner. the median. The family discovers their dead pet, and the parents tell their crying children that these things happen and that they'll get another cat. In his short life, this cat fathers 8 litters-50 kittens. The young woman who took the black female kitten lives in a no-pets apartment. When her landlord discovers the cat, he orders her to get rid of her pet or be evicted. Unable to move and unable to find anyone to take a mostly grown cat, she takes the animal to the outskirts of town and aban-dons her. In the year and a half before this cat dies of distemper, she has 4 litters of feral kittens. The young man who adopted the striped female has her spayed when she turns six months old and keeps her indoors always. She will be a healthy, wonderful companion for him for sixteen years. Fifteen months after Kali first became pregnant, 83 kittens have been born. Cin-dy found "good" homes for Kali's first 4 kittens, but she didn't consider the other 79. The sad fact is, every litter, planned or ac-cidental, adds to pet overpopulation. The cy-cle must stop before it starts-before that one litter. Jack and Susie bought a male Akita pup-PY from a large pet-store chain. Of course, he came complete with AKC papers register-ing him as a purebred. They name him Bear, and as he grows and matures sexually, Susie can barely handle his 100-plus pounds. He is erratic, seems preoccupied, and won't listen to her when they're outside. She has lost control of him six times already, and he ran loose for several hours each time before coming home. Jack takes Bear to a dog trainer, who ad-vises him to neuter the dog. Neutering would make Bear manageable, reduce his inclina-tion to run off, and help prevent him from becoming aggressive. But Jack wants to use Bear as a stud dog. He paid $500 for Bear, not to mention the trips to the vet for shots, checkups, and even vitamins. Surely, the puppies should bring in a lot of money! Somehow, though, he never arranges to stand Bear as a stud; meantime, the dog is getting more and more difficult to handle. The American Kennel Club (AKC) reports that it has 36 million purebred dogs registered in its studbook. In 1989 alone, the AKC registered more than 1 million dogs 26 and 550,300 litters. Although there is a de-mand for purebred dogs, purebred pets are not immune to the whims of people who see animals as disposable commodities. The HSUS estimates that as many as 25 percent of the animals entering shelters each year are purebreds. One look through the classified ads reveals how many free pets are registered or come with papers. Many people believe that breeding their purebred pet would be profitable. After all, they paid hundreds of dollars for their pet. (In truth, the reason "mall pets" cost so much is that a large part of the purchase price goes to paying the hefty rent the pet shop pays the mall for its prime location.) In reality, the average "backyard" breeder may sell only half of the litter and end up giving away the rest. If the breeder has pro-vided proper veterinary care to all of the ani-mals, his or her profit margin is usually slim or nonexistent. There may be a dog or cat, even a purebred, for every home in Amer-ica, but there is not a home for every avail-able dog and cat. One day, Susie is walking Bear in a park when they encounter a large male shepherd. Bear lunges, breaking his lead, and attacks the other dog. Susie tries to separate the dogs and is bitten by The charm of kit-tens can turn to suffering, caused by pet oumers who allow their ani-mals to breed in-discriminately. In-sets, left and cen-ter: unwanted ani-mals are often bought at auction for use as labora-tory-research sub-jects, or, right: eu-thanatized in shel-ters nationwide. Bear. The police finally stop the fight. Each dog has cuts and bite wounds but is other-wise okay. Jack decides to have Bear neutered. He is astonished at how much better behaved Bear becomes and how much happier the dog is. Unfortunately, Bear manages to father 6 litters of puppies before his surgery. The female dogs Bear impregnated have 34 puppies among them. Some of these pup-pies inherit their father's aggressiveness and pose problems to people in the neighborhood. One man, tired of the dogs coming into his yard, manages to shoot one of them. Two more die when they eat rat poison. Four are killed by cars. Animal-control officers capture 7 more of these nuisance animals and must euthanatize them because they are ill or unadoptable. One of HSUS NEWS • Fall 1990 the dog owners recognizes the size and strength of the puppies and sells his 4 to a dogfighter. One pet owner takes his dog's 4 puppies to the animal shelter and then has his dog spayed. Of the 34 puppies Bear fathers, 22 father or give birth to 156 more puppies. Pet overpopulation is not a new issue to most people. Since the 1960s, groups such as The HSUS have worked to inform peo-ple of the problem of too many pets and not enough homes and to encourage education, sterilization, and legislation to protect animals and address pet overpopulation. But "pet overpopulation" may seem abstract to the average person who just has one litter on his hands. One-or even a handful-of animals from one person does not seem like an insurmountable problem. HSUS NEWS • Fall 1990 With a human population already saturated with pets and ten or twenty people bring-ing litters into each animal shelter daily, the picture becomes clearer. Pet overpopulation comes from many sources. It comes from people who breed animals intentionally for profit or hobby. While it is true that there will always be a market for purebred animals, that market should be filled by conscientious breeders who are committed to improving their animals' breed in terms of genetics, be-havior, and temperament, as well as desir-able color, size, and shape. Pet overpopula-tion comes from puppy mills, those cruel, often horrendous breeding furms that supply pet-store animals. Pet overpopulation comes from the animals abandoned and left to fend for themselves, reproducing litter after litter. Pet overpopulation comes from animal shelters that do not en-sure that the pets they offer for adoption are spayed or neutered. These shelters are re-volving doors for pets and their offspring. Pet overpopulation, or at least attitudes that perpetuate the problem, even comes from ad-vertisements for pet products. Happy chil-dren romp with pup-pies and kittens in an effort to push cat and dog food. These com-panies are very con-cerned about keeping pets healthy through good nutrition, but they also do their part to foster pet overpopula-tion and assure more sales. Finally, pet over-population comes from pet owners who allow their unaltered pets out-side, where they do breed. It comes from people who allow their pets to have "just one litter," for whatever reason, or from pet owners who realize that "Sam" is really "Samantha" only after she delivers kittens. Many of these people would appear to be model pet owners. They provide veterinary care for their animals, give them special toys, fancy collars, and gourmet pet food. They spend a lot of money on their pets-sales of pet products are expected to exceed $8 billion this year. When they allow their animals to breed, however, even if by acci-dent, they are irresponsible and the root of the pet-overpopulation problem. There are many causes of pet overpopula-tion, but there are also many solutions. For more than twenty years, The HSUS has worked to expose the cruelties of pet over-population and the ways to prevent the un-necessary suffering it causes. In the last three years, our "Be a P.A.L.-Prevent A Litter" campaign has been implemented by thousands of individuals and groups across the country. Veterinarians in increasing numbers are educating their clients about the importance and advantages of having their pets spayed or neutered. Cooperative programs by veterinarians, humane groups, and m-dividuals offer reduced-fee surgeries for animals whose owners can't afford the regular price. Legislation that protects animals by re-quiring responsible pet ownership is in place in many parts of the country. Mandatory sterilization of shelter animals, differential licensing, and ordinances regulating the breeding of animals all contribute to respon-sible pet ownership. Pet overpopulation is not the millions of surplus animals born each year but one animal or one litter, turned in, given away, sold, abandoned, or no longer cared for. This correlation is rarely understood by the individuals turning in, giving away, selling, or abandoning their animals. Our challenge is to reach people before they reach the point of giving up their pet, before they allow their pets to breed, and, in many cases, before they make the deci-sion to get a pet in the first place. Talk to your neighbor, your city council, your local media. With a single litter, a single animal, we can make a difference. Kate Rindy is an associate in the HSUS Companion Animals Division and Rhonda Lucas Donald is editor of Shelter Sense. 27 

Just One Litter

https://www.wellbeingintlstudiesrepository.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1080&context=newshsus

Just One Litter

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

WBI Studies Repository (WellBeing International)