okay, to my readers with pets.
are they neteured?
if no, then SHAME!
PETA has released a new campaign about your ABC's, aka animal birth control knowledge and its something that more people should know about. every year, many innocent babies are strays or are given away or are unwanted simply because people didnt take the time to spay or neuter their pets. its just one viscious cycle.
you get a pet. dont neuter it. has puppies/kittens/babies. you leave the babies on the streets as strays. it has more strays. then the stray population just grows and grows, meaning that theres a harsher life for strays - harsher than it already is - and theres more animals without homes.
now, heres some facts about the ABCs.
- One stray dog and her offspring can produce up to approximately 67,000 strays in SIX YEARS! Imagine if thats just six years, and thats just one stray and her offspring. That doesn't include her grand-offspring or anything like that. Just one stray. It's horrible.
- It only takes seven years for one cat and her offspring to generate more than 400, 000 new kittens! That's worse than dogs!
- Every day approximately 70,000 new puppies and kittens are born. Why are we still buying from breeders when there are plenty of animals to choose from at shelters?!
- Pets in petstores are bred and raised in puppy mills
- Each year, 6-8 million cats and dogs are brought to shelters
- Half of the pets in shelters have to be killed each year.
- At "no-kill" shelters, animals are forced to sit in their cages for years, or turn away animals that are in desperate need to welcome new ones and let them die slowly.
How you can help:
For one thing, you can buy animals or new pets from shelters - it is one less pet that dies. Every time you buy from a breeder, there is at least one dog that dies in a shelter.
If you are getting a pet, GET IT SPAYED! It can be spayed (or neutered) once its 8 weeks old. And, a lot of shelters will give you some kind of rebate when you get it spayed. Its really sad that it takes insentive for people to care! We should be caring because we want to help, not because we're greedy. But if it helps, I guess it helps.
DO NOT BUY FROM PET STORES! You may think that you're saving the pets that are brought up in puppy mills from the cruel owners, but you're just giving the owners more money to breed more cruelty. ADOPT FROM SHELTERS.
Don't buy from breeders either. They may not have puppies in puppy mills, but then animals at shelters die. Really, there is no good breeder.
So, to summarize: spay and neuter your pets, buy from shelters, boycott petstores and breeders, and go to http://www.peta.org/ or http://www.peta2.org/ for more information!
Please, spay and neuter your pets.
The world is in danger, we need to be its superheroes.
Love,
TreeHugger
PS: All dogs are created equal. Fight breedism.