Not a lawyer, but you get the point.

Point in interest: The GP veterinarian I often use for routine matters (as in, ones I could diagnose myself) was uncomfortable with the idea of neutering Ilario at 12 weeks. I had a legitimate reason for doing so — my own health, with regard to allergies and the increase in FelD1 protein once the testosterone kicks in in male cats. (Previous discussion of Clara/Ilario and allergies here.)

I didn’t want her to do something she wasn’t comfortable doing, so I asked one of my other veterinarians, in a different practice. He agreed, and of course we had all the recommended safeguards — IV, anesthetic monitoring, pre- and post-op pain control, etc.

When I picked Ilario up, I noted on the bill that as discussed pre-op nothing was done except the surgery. Not a word on vaccines, no bill for exam, nothing. Just the surgery and the take-home pain meds.

So … yeah, it can be done.

I didn’t have to sign a waiver, but I would have. I wanted one thing and one thing only … neutering.

But of course, I’ve worked with this veterinarian for 25 years, and he knows that 1) If I said the kitten was in the middle of his shot regimen and healthy, he could trust my evaluation and my word; and 2) I would sooner sue my mother than this guy, who is one of the kindest, smartest people I’ve ever known, and a seriously kick-ass vet.

I was just comparing the idea of a shelter drop-off fee with the idea of imposing a penalty on people who fail to spay/neuter. I’m sorry if I wasn’t clear; I think both are a bad idea.

By far, the majority of the intact pets I have seen who have (and this is an important distinction) *actually produced unwanted/abandoned litters* have been feral cats, strays and pets owned by people who could not afford spay/neuter surgery. And when unwanted pets are the problem, I fail to see the genius in legislation that makes no distinction whatsoever between the wanted and the unwanted.

I live in a community actively working toward no-kill goals. We are generously funded by Maddie’s and, compared to many other municipalities, enjoy a healthy county budget for animal care services. We have one of the best TNR groups in the nation and are home to several visible and energetic non-profit rescue and adoption organizations.

Still, animals are dying in our streets and being killed in our shelter every day. Most say it’s because there are “too many pets and not enough homes”.

Last year, I offered to volunteer with a free spay/neuter program here. My job was to call the 400+ low-income households who had received the free voucher but had failed to use it to have their pets altered. The goal was to discover why these people didn’t use the free voucher.

The majority of the people I called reported they really wanted their pets altered but simply could not afford the “add on” (generally, vaccines) care for the surgery.

The issues overlapped but another big problem was with transportation; these were people without cars who could not afford or did not have access to public transportation. Another problem was that the voucher had expired before the person could manage to arrange a trip to the participating veterinarian.

To give an example with a “face”: I called an elderly woman living on food stamps and a $192 monthly check. She had three cats she had “adopted” from the streets; she adored these cats and told me story-after-story about how much they have come to mean to her. She expressed to me these cats were her “only family” as she had no one left in her human family.

Some months before, she had received the free voucher to have them altered but had never used it. The woman described to me how, using a neighbor’s phone, she had made arrangements with a local transport service for the elderly to get a ride to and from the veterinarian with her cats and then called to arrange the veterinary appointment. The veterinarian advised her she would need an additional $18 per cat for vaccines and a $10 per cat exam fee (these were the discounts offered for the needy using the free vouchers).

So, this meant she had to come up with $84 (nearly half her monthly income) before she could have her cats altered. And since food stamps cannot be used for pet food, she said “I had to choose between feeding them and spaying them and I just couldn’t let them go hungry.”

And you know it makes me sad and angry to remember this….but this poor woman cried on the phone with me because she felt she was failing her cats….she asked “do you think I’m a bad person?” and kept begging “you aren’t going to come take them away from me, are you?“. She kept reiterating to me that she loved them, kept them indoors and was careful they never got out so they wouldn’t get pregnant.

To me this was tragic; I could feel her shame and her frustration and it made me really angry at the system that I feel was failing her and her pets.

Now with something like AB1634.…what would have happened? Would the threat of a $500 fine and $50 per month thereafter done anything to get this woman’s cats altered? Sorry, but I have very little faith in a 100% FREE and user-friendly spay/neuter program….few are.

And without something like that securely in place and fully operational, I can’t fathom how any municipality can think that penalizing the poor along with every other perceived “threat” will help reduce pet numbers.

And seriously, if a truly operational FREE spay/neuter program were in place, the municipality wouldn’t NEED that sort of legislation, would they?

Now imagine this very same woman losing her cats because she simply couldn’t pay the imposed s/n fines. OK great, we don’t charge her at the shelter door and boast we are offering her cats humane “shelter” at no cost because it’s better than imposing a fee a risking she abandons them. Nice. But what’s the point? Why not just offer free and accessible S/N services?

I can’t imagine the AC officers charged with enforcing AB1634 are going to be going to these people’s homes and evaluating each one to discover which are truly in need of help and which are just “irresponsible jerks” who will comply when threatened with a $500 fine. Can you?

Okay, I’m hurling, too. I don’t think I could stand being in this person’s presence any longer either.

Just to cheer everyone up, I have the opposite problem — I had to frantically read up on the care of feral kittens because if Pepper finds abandoned ones at the community garden, she brings them to me and insists that we help them — this is a dog that has no problem finishing off varmits, but as she grew up with cats, she knows that they are different.

Of course, this doesn’t prevent her from believeing that adult feral cats belong in the trees (she is a Border Collie, after all) and last year, when she found a couple of older feral kittens, she watched them closely, realized that they were not in need of help, so she very gently nudged them up into their first tree where they sat in the branches looking very confused, but the babies? They need help and she’s determined that we give it to them.

I echo what was already said: People should see shelters are places of shelter for animals, and we shouldn’t be shaming them for bringing their animals there any more than we shame women for going to domestic violence shelters.

Letting go of a beloved animal is often the hardest part of a divorce, job loss, or the economic bomb the Bush years have dropped on this country.

Of course there are a**holes who couldn’t care less, but if you charge them a fee they’ll just dump on the side of the road.

There will always be a certain number of jerks in the world, and shelters need to be there as a safety net for their animals, as well as the animals of those who face genuine hardship.

The jerks won’t learn from (or pay) a fee and it’s cruel to levy one on those who have no choice.