I met a woman about a month ago who proudly proclaimed she & other dog lovers had managed to get legislation in the AZ house to mandate spaying/neutering all cats and dogs. Now, at first pass, most people think this is great. But I just feel we, as a nation, tend to over-legislate, and this particular legislation has a risk if it actually succeeds -- which I'll get to. Anyway, I started poking around the internet to see what I could find out about it.
Wow.
A little background on AZ. We have -- have had for years -- a mandatory spay/neuter for all animals adopted out of a shelter. This proposed legislation (House Bill 2516) would take that further by mandating ALL animals be spayed/neutered unless the owner purchases an "intact" permit. You can get this permit if your non-neutered/non-spayed dog works for the police/fire departments, is a show/competition dog or in training to becomes so, or if you are breeding working dogs.
For a more thorough run-down of the bill & what it means, read this. The short interpretation is that if the bill passes, you must fix your pet, or you must prove that your pet fits into the exceptions and you must pay (twice) to not fix your animal. Twice, because you have to pay for a permit--that's per animal, per year--& pay a higher-rate for a license--again per (dog) per year. The exceptions to the spay/neuter mandate do not appear to include regular breeders. The bill specifies breeders of working dogs.
The provision is for both cats & dogs, but I'll focus on dogs just to keep the messy debate a little less cluttered.
Mandating spaying/neutering (I'll use MSN from now on) is intended to address pet over-population, decrease animals being killed in the shelter system, and in some arguments, increase public safety. What I found in numerous articles on the web were facts on how & why this doesn't work.
It's not at all the importance of spaying or neutering the family pet that's under debate. It's widely agreed that the typical dog owner needs to get their pet fixed (although there are differing opinions as to when they should be fixed.) What's being argued is the legislation, the legal requirement to have all dogs fixed.
There are cities and counties that have enacted similar laws already. The laws are all slightly different, (see here for some) but they seem to range from ineffectual to disastrous. Some counties repealed their law. In general, though, places where MSN was enacted and enforced saw a rise in the cost of animal control (which far exceeded expectation), little effect or even a rise in euthanasia, a significant drop in dog licensing, and in some cases a rise in rabies cases. On consideration, this seems like an obvious effect of MSN. If the law is strongly enforced, as in animal control is going out and citing people with unfixed animals, then the "backyard breeders", the indifferent owners, and those who want to comply but simply can't afford the vet bill will be dumping their animals on the shelters who will then have to euthanize most just to keep up. Those who don't get cited won't be licensing their dogs in order to avoid not only the fines but all the fees associated with unfixed pets. And dog licensing is linked to rabies control. Where I live, when I get my dogs' rabies vaccinations renewed, the county sends me a slip reminding me to renew the license too. People who want to avoid licensing their dogs then have to avoid rabies vaccinations too. If the law isn't strongly enforced, then it's only the good breeders and owners who are affected. In the end, MSN only really affects the responsible pet owners and the good breeders. It has the potential to affect breeders badly, but I'll make that a separate post.
As far as what MSN is trying to address…Over-population is an issue, but only in some places. Where it is a problem, MSN does not address the underlying cause of crowded shelters, the unwanted adult dogs. There are many reasons animals wind up in shelters, but many of them boil down to a human who under-estimated what it took to be an owner of that particular dog. In regards to the goal of decreasing the number of animals killed each year, the numbers I've seen in my poking around indicate euthanasia has been decreasing steadily over the last couple decades. Successful spay/neuter programs are already in place, through a combination of owner education and low-cost clinics & campaigns to help those who can't afford it themselves.
The public safety concerns were about dog bites and dog aggression, and breed specific. I don't know that this is one of the reasons people are promoting MSN legislation in Arizona. I read about it in regards to San Francisco, where they were considering it as a way to address fears about pit bulls and dog bites. Ultimately, I understand spaying/neutering does decrease the animal's drive, but it does not stop dogs from biting, wandering out of the yard, or running up to people. Outside of truly vicious dogs, it's dog training, socialization, and quite frankly human behavior that will affect this.
This is just a summary of what I've learned so far, and I hope you don't take my word for it but look into it yourself. I have not done an exhaustive search on the arguments around HB 2516 (the AZ legislation on MSN) and I was predisposed to argue against it to begin with.
If you find a site with thorough arguments for MSN, please post it in the comments section, I'd love to read it.
There are too many pages I looked at to post them all, but here are the a few:
Animal Law Coalition's arguments against MSN
American Kennel Club's arguments against the law proposed, and defeated in California
KC Dog Blog did a series of posts on BSL/MSN. The posts pure opinion of course, and he gets rather snarky about media coverage and such, but he supports his conclusions with numbers and brings up excellent points.
National Pet Alliance on the San Mateo ordinance
Pet-Law.com article on MSN
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