Sometimes an issue is so politicized, the cultural issues so huge, you can’t imagine making a difference.

But you know you have to try.

I am calling this issue “Murphy’s Choice.” Because I want your dogs, your beloved animals, to live.

Please. Help me take down the animal welfare community as it currently exists.

End it. Stop it. Put it out of business.

Don’t lose your dog the way I lost my beloved Cavalier, Murphy: to a cancer linked to early spay/neuter. Let’s save our dogs’ lives. Our cats. Our beloved animal families.

How?

Just say no—and make sure they know why you’re saying it.

• Don’t adopt any animal from anyone—shelter, rescue, breeder, irresponsible owners—who requires early spay/neuter. Tell them why.
• Don’t do business with anyone, especially veterinarians, who urges routine early spay/neuter. Tell them why.
• Don’t give money to anyone or any organization, from the Humane Society to Best Friends to your local shelters and rescue groups, who support early spay/neuter. Tell them why.
• Tell everyone you know or meet on the street: what they’re telling us to do to our animals is killing them. There is proof.

Early spay/neuter has not stopped pet overpopulation. It is causing cancer, obesity, thyroid disease, arthritis, hip dysplasia—want to know more? Google it. You’ll find me. You’ll also find research going back years that points to early spay/neuter as a key reason for these conditions and illnesses, and for a host of others that plague our animal families.

That we don’t know this is, honestly, a conspiracy of silence and ignorance. And it is killing our animals.

All issues concerning the animals who are your current or prospective animal family members should be your decision. All of them. Each animal needs to be considered as an individual, with its own needs. You need responsible, knowledgeable veterinarians to help you with those choices. You don’t need to have those decisions made for you by anyone else, no matter how loving and concerned they seem to be.

Because they either don’t know the truth, or they think their political views are more important.

They are wrong.

Really, it’s simple. You add an animal to the family, and you’re expected to care for it for life, which could be years. Yet one of the most crucial issues is when you interrupt its hormonal development, and somehow politics says it should be someone else’s decision. That we are all buying into it is shocking. That we need to stop doing so is obvious.

Here’s what you need to know:

• Take female dogs through at least two heat cycles.
• There is almost no reason to ever neuter a male dog.

When an animal is spayed or neutered depends on that animal’s needs. If that animal is living with you, then it’s your responsibility to know what those needs are, and to meet them.

Right now 50% of dogs over 10 will get cancer.

I lost my beloved Murphy to cancer. She was a week shy of 13 years, 8 months. She had other issues throughout her life, from a thyroid disorder to arthritis. I can’t say for sure everything that was involved in this. (It is not being a purebred, this problem crosses all breeds and mixes, which, by the way, happen to be unethical, and somebody needs to offer a rational explanation for why everyone rushes to adopt the animals that come from people who have irresponsibly allowed their animals to reproduce yet criticizes responsible, careful breeders, but those are serious subjects for another time).

What I now know is that early spay/neuter is a well-known culprit in these conditions. And I can tell you that it was bad enough to lose Murphy, and worse to know that I might have been able to prevent it if I’d just known that early spay/neuter is not a solution to anything.

In 30 years of pushing early spay/neuter we have not resolved pet overpopulation. We have simply brainwashed people into doing it because there is a problem, which assumes that we are not going to be responsible for their care and supervision.

How dumb was I? How dumb is everybody else? How dumb will you be going forward?

Let’s stop the madness. Get off the early spay/neuter bandwagon. Get onto one that protects our animals and our multi-species families. That honors the human-animal bond.

Let’s take down the current animal welfare system. Replace it with loving, calm, committed dialogue and solutions that work for our animal families.

Educate yourself. Educate your neighbors. Then quit doing business with the people and organizations who are perpetuating a myth that is killing our animals.

Here it is, again: early spay/neuter is not solving the pet overpopulation problem, but it is subjecting our animals to serious illnesses and early deaths that can be prevented by not interrupting their hormonal development until they are sexually mature.

Please. Save our dogs. It’s too late for my beloved Murphy. Please, help me save your animal family.

Shut down the animal welfare system as it exists. Just say no.

© 2012 Robyn M Fritz