Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Animal Birth Control ABC

Just a day after I wrote about the sterilization of my void deck felines, I saw these series of PETA advertisements on ecorazzi.


Image taken from ecorazzi and PETA

Indeed, it is as easy as ABC.

The poster writes:

"Nearly four million dogs and cats are put to death in the U.S. every year because there are not enough good homes. You can help prevent this - always spay or neuter your animals, and if you’re considering adding a dog or cat to your family, please adopt from your local animal shelter."
Read more about PETA's ABC Campaign. One must really applaud PETA's sensational media campaigns. It's everything that we have always talked about when thinking of how to reach the wider audience. Alright, but we're just not quite there yet with splashing paint on fur coats. Or even dressing up as a bear to greet the Queen of England when she visited Singapore.

On the home front, Cat Welfare Society works hard at the TNRM program - that stands for Trap-Neuter-Release-Manage system for "stray" cats. However, does that mean that if you keep cats at home or even a pedigree cat, that means you are excused from neutering your pets?

Recently a friend of mine bought a puppy - a labrador. The cutest girl that I've ever seen. But then when asked if he thought of neutering her, he came up with a blank. Considering that he's a dog trainer / handler with the army, I thought perhaps that he might wish to breed the pedigree but then he said that there are no such plans. That's when I asked him what if there are accidental pregnancies? She is a girl and dogs don't practice contraceptive! I guess I was on the same wavelength as PETA at that moment. Animals need help to practice birth control. Unless you intend to care for your pet and be responsible for its every birth then perhaps this is when you should start thinking about your ABCs.

8 comments:

Dawn said...

Hi Monkey - just came across your post and wanted to clarify. TNRM is for community cats because the whole concept is that the cats are Trapped from the streets, Neutered (or sterilised) and then Returned and Managed back in their community. This obviously wouldn't apply to home pets who don't live on the streets, and of course we do advocate sterilisation of home pets.

Our tag line is "Save lives, sterilise" and that applies to all - but we focus on community cats because they are the most vulnerable on the streets. If they keep breeding, then complaints come in and they are killed.

Monkey said...

Dawn, I apologize if you misunderstood what I wrote.

I meant that you guys are doing a good job for the community cats but then what about the home cats!

I'm not questioning CWS but the people who keep cats at home. Pedigrees or "strays"...

I'm sorry my post didn't explain all that clearly.

Dawn said...

I agree - home cats not being sterilised are a real problem :(

k$ said...

No matter what you think of PETA's controversial campaigns...I think anyone can get behind a pledge to end animal homelessness:

http://getactive.peta.org/campaign/end_animal_homelessness?qp_source=abcpsas

Dawn said...

I just wish they would support TNR, which they do not and that they would support no-kill, which again they do not (and in the process have misinterpreted and aligned the good work that no-kill organisations do). I find it very hard to support an organisation that claims to be about animal welfare but does not support either.

Monkey said...

What?! They don't support TNR or No-Kill then what in the world do they support? Geez!!

Dawn said...

Here's a link you might find interesting :-
http://sev.prnewswire.com/publishing-information-services/20080111/DC1129510012008-1.html

Monkey said...

omg thats worse than living with the fact that spca puts their animals to sleep. sigh. u would think they were one above but nope. just as mortal as the rest of us