Eight years. It’s not an eternity but it is a decent chunk of time. It’s a two-term presidency. It’s the amount of time it can take you to get your undergrad, law degree and pass the bar. For a large number of us that’s how many years it took for us to figure out that Santa Clause and the Tooth fairy just aren’t real. (If you didn’t know those facts, spoiler alert, neither is the Easter Bunny!) But take a pair of dogs or a pair of cats who are neither spayed nor neutered, and do you know what they can do in 8 years? Produce two million offspring. Yeah, that’s right, two million. If a pair of cats or dogs is left unaltered and reproduce and then their offspring also remain unaltered and then they also reproduce and so on and so forth for 8 years, what you have are 2 million animals. It’s true. Look it up for yourself. I did. And I did so because I thought that figure was a massive exaggeration, but it’s not.

Spaying or neutering your pet is actually one of the most compassionate acts you can do for your furry friend. If left unaltered there is a very good likelihood he or she will try to reproduce (it is, after all, a biological imperative in the brains of all animals) and all it takes is one unaltered stray to start the whole cycle. We can only achieve a standard of “no kill” animal shelters as long as the pet population remains under control. Unless your animal is bred to be bred, every pet owner is responsible for helping to keep the animal population down by spaying or neutering his or her pet. It’s just part of being a good member of your community.

Let’s treat our best friends like our best friends. Just like you would take the keys away from a friend who you knew was too drunk to drive because you knew that not allowing them to drive is the right thing and in their best interest, do the right thing for your pet because it is the right thing. It helps you, your community, and the animal population as a whole. Spay or neuter your pet. That way you can have time to think about other things like spaying or neutering your significant other because they forgot to take out the trash… again.

2 = 2,000,000 in just 8 years

By D. Andrew Ross

Bam! A year-and-a-half just like that is added to your life, what do you do? Everything possible, right, heck yeah! Well, that's what we’re doing for our pets when we spay and neuter them. That’s right, we give them a longer, healthier life. An intact dog lives an average of 7.9 years, a “fixed” dog lives an average of 9.4 years, (ScienceDaily). It’s an extra 10 dog years, that’s a lifetime.

In that same year-and-a-half, one female dog can have up to three litters of puppies, that’s 30 puppies, now you have a Kindergarten class! According to the 2017-2018 National Pet owner survey, conducted by the American Pet Products Association, (APPA), 68% of American households, that’s 85 million families, are pet owners. We own 94.2 million cats and 89.7 million dogs! Think that’s a lot? Let’s look at 1345.5 million puppies, million! That’s jaw-dropping! In a year-and-a-half, this is how many puppies alone could possibly be born, from our pets alone. Add strays, and we have the animals taking over our country. Who’s wearing the Milk-Bone shorts, now? This alone screams to have our pets spayed and neutered. (You can pick up your jaw now.)

Our pets will live healthier lives on top of longer lives just by spaying and neutering them. Testicular cancer risk eliminated, who wouldn’t want that? Ovarian and uterine cancer risk reduced or eliminated, also. We need to jump on that. Compare the cost of just one cancer treatment, to the cost of spay and neutering. It’s pennies on the dollar, sometimes it’s pennies on the fifty cent piece.​

(Dr. Olson, Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine) reports intact female dogs are seven times higher risk of developing mammary tumors, than females sterilized at a young age. Did you know 50% of tumors found in dogs, and 90% of the tumors found in cats are malignant? For cats, that is so sad. (dognaturall) (Laura J Sandborn M.S.) Here’s another benefit, it nearly eliminates the risk of pyometra. This affects 23% of intact females, and is something we can change! All these risk our pets face, we do it for our humans, we do it for ourselves, we need to do it for our furry friends. So, let’s go help our babies.

They will show you they appreciate it! Their behavior will calm down, testosterone driven aggression is reduced or eliminated. Ralph won’t want to attack your neighbors pooch now! Makes fir a peaceful community for our pets. For my girl, it was like she matured, still very playful, and so much more affectionate. Results show, 74% of male dog behavior improvement, after neutering. (Heidelberg and Unshelm, publish 1990) well, I’m not sure about you, but I call that results! Our pets will have less aggression, less spread of disease, less injury, and most important less death. Those walks will also become much more enjoyable for both of you.

What a better way is there? Giving our pets longer, healthier lives, and receiving a better behaved pooch, yes that’s a win-win for our pets, our families, as well our communities. It is drastically cheaper than treating cancer, financially, physically, and emotionally. Eliminating infection and cancers is a reward in itself, plus, another year-and-a-half with them, so exciting! There are local shelters who can help with your pets, local vets, and some charities to also help. It’s not time consuming or expensive. It’s time to help our pets, spay neuter yours today.

For Healthy Sake

By Gina Kay

​It seems that dealing with the first few litters of kittens and getting them off the street and adopted can sometimes happen rather quickly and easily, but then, without warning, it stops! No one is in need of a kitten and your friends avoid you because you never ask ‘how are you’ anymore…it’s now become ‘do you want a kitten…pleeease?’ So in desperation, you realize that you have to end the reproduction cycle where it begins and that is at the source. It is obvious that finding homes for kittens do not accomplish anything at all, other than create more kittens and more work and frustration for you. As always, your goal has been to make their lives better…So what do you do?....Well you TNR them, of course!

…and that’s how it began….

Trap, Neuter and Return has become the most humane and effective way of gaining control of the feral/free roaming cat overpopulation problem. Cats are trapped, sterilized, vaccinated, eartipped and returned to their colony, where caretakers continue to make their lives better. Trapping and removing feral cats from a location will not work because eventually new, unsterilized cats will move back into that area and the whole process will begin again.

This all started while we were living in New York, where doing TNR became a regular thing. If you see a feral cat, you TNR it….it was the rule of thumb. You learn the feeding times and habits, trap at 5am if you have to or 11pm at night, it didn’t matter. It all depended on location and feeding schedule and availability of easily booked TNR spay/neuter appointments and of course, it was always to better the lives of the street cats. Unfortunately, at that time and not knowing what the future held, I always thought that when we retired, we would spend a lot of quality time in our new home in the Sunshine State. That thought apparently, was the understatement of the year, and after moving to Florida and realizing that ‘every season is kitten season’ TNR became more than a regular thing, it became almost a way of life.

Trap, Neuter and Return has become the most humane and effective way of gaining control of the feral/free roaming cat overpopulation problem. Cats are trapped, sterilized, vaccinated, eartipped and returned to their colony, where caretakers continue to make their lives better. Trapping and removing feral cats from a location will not work because eventually new, unsterilized cats will move back into that area and the whole process will begin again.

This all started while we were living in New York, where doing TNR became a regular thing. If you see a feral cat, you TNR it….it was the rule of thumb. You learn the feeding times and habits, trap at 5am if you have to or 11pm at night, it didn’t matter. It all depended on location and feeding schedule and availability of easily booked TNR spay/neuter appointments and of course, it was always to better the lives of the street cats. Unfortunately, at that time and not knowing what the future held, I always thought that when we retired, we would spend a lot of quality time in our new home in the Sunshine State. That thought apparently, was the understatement of the year, and after moving to Florida and realizing that ‘every season is kitten season’ TNR became more than a regular thing, it became almost a way of life.

Doing TNR in a new State meant having to start from scratch, research what avenues were available and then decide how to begin. It also meant having to curb your disappointment when finding out that there were a lot less free spay/neuter clinics available than what you were accustomed to and yet thousands of more community cats roaming the streets. Fortunately, dealing with the only available free county clinic and its hard to schedule appointments had its advantages and eventually led to meeting other TNR volunteers who, like me, were willing to take on the task of helping the community cats.

After many months and many discussions, a few dedicated volunteers gathered and decided that the biggest impact we could have with doing TNR in this overpopulated feral cat area was to expand and try to utilize the available low cost spay/neuter clinics in the county, but that would take a lot of work, not only with TNR but for fundraising as well.

The best and most effective thing to do would be to start a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. This would enable us to do fundraising and apply for much needed grant money. Not wanting to become another Rescue Group, we chose to stay focused on what we originally started out doing and that was Trap, Neuter and Return of feral and free roaming cats.....yet another chapter is about to begin in wanting to better the lives of community cats.s

After many hours of compiling facts and figures, filling out countless forms and applications and waiting months for a reply, the 501(c)3 was up and running. We became one of the first TNR groups in our area and Trap, Neuter and Return took on a whole new meaning for us. Not only were we still doing TNR, but we expanded our services to provide vet care and rehab for sick and injured ferals before returning them back to their colonies if their condition permits. We promote the advantages of TNR thru community education and awareness, offer hands on guidance for new volunteers and host TNR workshops for individuals who want to become involved and TNR feral/free roaming cats in their area. We chose to focus mainly on helping elderly and disabled individuals who would like to carry out the TNR process but cannot do it themselves. We work closely with several Rescue Groups who help find homes for friendly strays and adoptable kittens thru their adoption programs and we are continuously involved in many community events.

Utilizing the free county spay/neuter clinic is one way we are able to continue to do TNR and we are constantly applying for grant monies, hold fundraising events and rely on the generosity of individual donations so that we can continue to use the available low cost spay/neuter clinics in our area. We are always looking for better and more productive ways to help our community with TNR and believe the best way is with more community involvement.

TNR actually is a proven way of controlling the community cat overpopulation and one of our colonies is a purrfect example. After an elderly person passed away, we took over caring for their colony of 29 feral cats. Over the past six years, and neutering any new cats that moved in, thru uncontrollable circumstances and natural attrition, the numbers have reduced down to 12 healthy and content feral cats who are enjoying their lives in their own comfortable environment and who are such joys to visit with every day. Just imagine the possibilities if more people got involved to become part of the solution because TNR actually works.

I started doing Trap, Neuter and Return back in 2009 and now, in 2017, with the help of our TNR Organization, over 3000 cats have been spayed in neutered in two different states….all because of a compassionate decision to make lives better for a few feral street cats.

How to start your own feral cat TNR

By Glenda Sparnroft