Laws centralized around the idea that it should be mandatory to sterilize your pets are not efficient. That being said, none of the same efforts show signs of success and are subsequently meaningless to the American population. Placing the responsibility on owners to retain most of the judgement on maintaining their pets’ ability to reproduce is understandable, however the notion that laws should actually be enforced to further regulate pet sterilization so as not to see an increase in numbers of homeless and euthanized animals is essentially redundant. The redundancy within the issue is that although the efforts are made with good intention, the process of sterilization still will bear a burden of consequence as prepubescent loss of vital sex hormones has potential to negatively affect an animal’s health.
Another perspective is that of the owner, who will have to face somewhat expensive medical costs as making it a legal necessity to spay or neuter all of ones pets can start to get quite costly. For the owners lacking the proper financial stability to cover their trips to the vet, underground medical procedures will become commonplace. Enforcing the population to be relieved of their pets if they do not comply will simply put the brunt of responsibility within the hands of animal shelters, which would render the purpose of such laws useless.
This loss of sex hormone so early into an animal’s life could proof dangerous to the long term health of said animal. This means that although sterilization does as intended, the aftermath can lead to shyness and decreased resistance from animals, decreasing their survival rate should owners decide to give them up or have them run away.
Weight gain is also seen as a contributing factor to the negative impact sterilization can have on pets. This is important to note because after becoming spayed or neutered, the minimum calorie intake for these animals decreases, leaving room for overcompensation in meals which will lead to a shift in weight gain over the duration of their lives which affects nutritional values and can lead to diabetes in domesticated animals.
The amount it would cost to citizens expected to sterilize their pets would make laws such as these incredibly hard to get on board with. With no option to decline getting your pets spayed or neutered costs for the procedure could reach upwards of $200.
For the average American, this is a bill which seems unnecessary in terms of importance and can be quite a stretch for some, especially owners of multiple domesticated dogs or cats. Although it have a significant impact on number of animals conceived into the world, is it really another concept of life we should be focused on putting monetary importance on? Depending on the vet or location decided to have the process done it could be a cost effective procedure, however many of these designated areas could be out of the way for select people and could lead to drastic measures to avoid a fine or loss of their furred companion(s). This would lead otherwise law abiding citizens short of money required to spay their pets to submit to underground and primarily illegitimate means so as not to violate the law.
Supporting laws such as these which are not fireproof and do not carry a huge positive upside to them is pointless. Forcing people to comply and sterilize their animals or else risk obstructing the law and loss of their pets stretches beyond the boundaries of the law. Proving to have drastic health impact due to relieving the animal of materials which keeps vital processes in their bodies from functioning as intended, leading to various issues along the lines of weight gain, non-responsiveness, and increasing the appeal for pets to hide.
From an ethical standpoint you would be robbing animals of their native instinct, rendering them helpless, a former shell of how they were created, and losing most if not all purpose in life. The owner will also have to pay their dues with the implication of regulated animal sterilization as they will be the ones forced to share out of pocket expenses for something which does not impede the flow of their life, proving very costly to some and a financial burden to others. If an owner does not follow through on his or her newfound responsibilities they will have to endure the legal system and/or lose possession of their pets, leading some to extreme measures which would open up the doors for a slew of problems dealing with domesticated animals and the black market.
This could prove costly to the government as black marketing of animals would become an increasingly saturated and hard to track means of taking advantage of the sterilization laws, which could prove to be a bigger problem in itself than the original issue of animal overcrowding. Forcing someone to give their beloved pet away would only land the animal into the arms of an animal shelter or another government-regulated means of keeping animals off the streets, which would only lead to overcrowding in other areas and become something other than a solution to the problem. The ideals of an owner should transfer into the responsibility of being a pet owner, and with sterilization laws having many flaws, it is not a viable solution to the country.
