Pet Talk

by Cathy Davis
    There is an assumption that because I write a pet related column I know a lot about animals. The truth is, I love animals, always have, but I have no special expertise in the areas of animal health or training. Sad to say, I am an obedience school drop-out. I let my dogs walk all over me, and lay all over me, and eat my shoes, and I bring my pets home treats and toys and spoil them rotten.
    As much as I would love to be your source of information on all things dog and all things cat, I’m pretty much in the dark. If I knew as much as I was given credit for, I’d be a veterinarian, and trust me, nothing would please me more than to be smart enough to be a vet, but ask any veterinarian who knows me and they will confirm that sadly I am just a dog and cat loving old lady.
    I am just like you, you love animals or you would not read Pet Talk from week to week. You think that your dog is king of the house, your cat rules with an iron paw, and you melt with laughter at their antics and curl up with them at night when you’re feeling blue. You have no idea what to do when your dog gets skunked, you have no clue as to what is the best brand of flea medicine, and your biggest fear is that one day you may have to make the sad decision to help your Rover or Fluffy into doggie or kitty heaven because of advanced age and deteriorating health.
    We are all the same, you and I, and we all have one big hope, that while we live and breathe, we give our pets good homes, and maybe even help a few other pets find good homes. We have the same dreams, that some day there will be no more homeless pets and that shelters will be a thing of the past, just like dial telephones.  
    We hold onto this belief that some day all pets will be spayed and neutered, or that maybe somebody will invent this great dog and cat food that has safe birth control medication built into it or that somehow, some way, over population will cease to be an issue.
    We are the same, so my apologies if you have a question or an issue that you think I can help with and I’m not really the expert you hoped for. I can give you some well-tested theories as to why Fluffy won’t use the litter box any more, but your vet is the one to rule out physical causes. I can quote you various training methods for puppy training but to be honest, I haven’t had a puppy in my house for 35 years, and when I did, I was a stay-at-home mom who could drop everything and scoot Cocoa out the door when I saw her start to drop her pants.
    The one thing I know is this, we love our pets. This country spends almost $51,000,000,000 on their pets annually. Yep, that says fifty one billion dollars. In 2010, $20,000,000,000 was spent on veterinary bills, leaving over thirty one billion dollars that were spent on toys, treats, training, fancy jackets and booties, grooming, and other items. If you ask my husband, he’ll probably tell you he thinks I spent half that budget myself, just on my animals and shelter animals.
    There are approximately 5,000 animal shelters across the US. Every year over 3 million animals are needlessly euthanized for lack of space. 
    Now, I want you to re-read the last two paragraphs. We are a nation that loves our animals and yet we still fail to spay and neuter, we still give up animals at an alarming rate, and we are still, as a nation, responsible for the death of over 3 million animals a year. The  shelters that are forced to euthanized are villainized, despised, and treated with disrespect and yet who created this problem? Not the shelter staff, not the loving caring individuals who cry themselves to sleep at night because animals are coming in faster than they are going out!
    What is wrong with this picture? And what can you do to help? 
    First of all, spay and neuter your pets. Simple, easy, inexpensive, and known to improve the health of your critter. Second, adopt if you can, and donate if you can’t. Your donations can be used to spay and neuter shelter pets so that eventually there will be fewer and fewer unwanted animals coming into the system. And last, if you have a pet that you cannot keep for some reason, start the process of re-homing early, work within the community, post ads, network on facebook, put up flyers, but do what you can to find a good loving home for your pet .
    I don’t have all the answers, but I know with your help, we can each make a difference.