LA Animal Shelter Becomes Slaughterhouse

eaglerock814

Please take a look at the Los Angeles shelter statistics for unweaned puppies : http://www.laanimalservices.com/PDF/reports/UnweanedPuppiesIntakeNOutcomes.pdf .

The statistics are remarkable. Almost no puppies enter the shelter, and most of them find homes.

It seems to destroy the argument about people receklessly allowing their dogs to breed. It points to the probability that irresponsible owners of older dogs are the problem.

Unfortunately numbers do not tell the whole story. How many 'reckless' litters are sold in parking lots, given away or simply 'disposed' off? What are those numbers? The fact of the matter is, lots of puppies from reckless breeding do end up in shelters - eventually.     

The people you are talking about are not reckless breeders.

They are reckless dog owners who allow their pets to stray and get bred accidentally.

The way to solve this problem is by aggressive enforcement of leash laws.

Mandatory spay/neuter does nothing, because only responsible people will obey the law.

Reckless people will still allow their dogs to roam and get bred. Many of them will abandon their dogs, rather than comply with the law. That's not right, but it is reality. It has been proven conclusively in every community that has passed a spay/neuter mandate.

Enforcing leash and licensing laws is the best tool available, and the only tool that has been proven to work.

eaglerock814

The people you are talking about are not reckless breeders.

They are reckless dog owners who allow their pets to stray and get bred accidentally.

I'm not talking about reckless breeders, if by that you mean people who intentionally, yet indiscriminately breed their dogs. I am talking about the unaltered dogs who unintentionally end up producing unplanned litters. I doubt the majority of these pups are going to show up in shelters unweaned. As I stated before they will probably be sold, given away or destroyed but still run a greater risk of ending up in shelters down the road than say 'planned' litters. So I challenge your assumption that the lack of unweaned pups in shelters translates to "It seems to destroy the argument about people recklessly allowing their dogs to breed."   

eaglerock814

The way to solve this problem is by aggressive enforcement of leash laws.

Mandatory spay/neuter does nothing, because only responsible people will obey the law.

If irresponsible people won't obey spay/neuter laws, they won't obey leash laws either. Aggressive enforcement of both laws is needed IMO. At least if an altered dog escapes or in roaming off leash the risk of an unplanned litter is zilch.