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"No, (shudder) I can't neuter my dog Max. It would make him a different dog."
Yes, sir, it would make him a nicer dog, one less distracted by his raging hormones, one less apt to chew through the fence to go roaming through the neighborhood and being hit by a car.
"I want my little girl to learn the facts of life by letting our cat Missy have kittens."
If you want your daughter to see the facts of life, please take her to your local pound so she may see all the unwanted, unplanned kittens and puppies - a horrible "fact of life." If you want her to see the miracle of birth, tune in to Animal Planet and the Nature Channel. Please don't add to the over population problem of hundreds of thousands of unwanted kittens.
"Nah, why should I fix my tom cat, Sam? I don't own any female cats so any resulting kittens aren't my problem."
Hey, nice attitude! How about you'd save on vet bills because Max would stop fighting and getting abscesses from scratches and bites, how about because Max would be a sweeter - and sweeter smelling - cat if you got him fixed?
"I don't have the time."
But you have the time to buy puppy or kitten food, to wash bedding, to put an ad in the paper, or load up your car with unwanted puppies/kittens and take them to the pound?
"It's too expensive to spay or neuter."
So is puppy or kitten food. So is cancer treatment for mammary, uterine, or testicular cancer. Spaying and neutering is positively cheap when you consider your pet's long term health!
"My dog Bella is a purebred. It would be a crime not to breed her and get some puppies off of her."
Are you prepared to go into the professional dog breeding business? Do you know if your dog, purebred though she is, is such an excellent example of the breed that she should reproduce? Can you analyze her faults and then spend the time and money to find the perfect male to sire these puppies? Do you have the money and the time to feed, vaccinate, advertise, and screen potential owners of the puppies?
"Gee, is there still a pet overpopulation problem? I thought the pound and SPCA had taken care of that by spaying and neutering pets before they're adopted?"
Despite spay and neuter policies of animal rescue groups, there still is a horrendous pet overpopulation problem. Just count the kitten ads in the paper all spring and summer long. Ask members of rescue groups about the feral cat problem in which the average life span of a wild cat is two years, with many kittens not making it past four months of age, with the rest suffering from flea infestations, earmites, upper respiratory infections, FELV and FIV, ask them about the excess number of Heinz 57 dogs and even purebreds that are part of our throwaway culture.
"Okay, okay. I'm convinced! I'll fix [Max, Sam, Missy, Bella] - soon."
No, do it today!
"Okay, I promise."
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