Legislation and Mandatory Spay/Neuter

With new legislation already in place in some cities and pending legislation in many more for mandatory spay/neuter of all dogs more attention needs to be paid to what results this brings about. I find that in most cases the laws that require this to be done by four months of age are reprehensible and not well thought out. Even six months of age is too young! For the most part these draconian bits of legislation have been sponsored by PETA and HSUS. Those organizations would very much like to see no pets of any kind in any household. Look at it this way, if they were to actually accomplish spay/neuter of ALL dogs before 4 months of age, how long would it be before there were no dogs at all in the USA? I suppose we could always turn to other countries, but to do this properly one would need to visit breeders and get to know many dogs before being able to properly select type, temperament, health, etc. It would be very costly, and then once you have actually purchased an adult or a puppy, it would immediately be required to conform to the spay/neuter law in your own town or county. Do we really want to live our lives without our much loved canine family members? Not me! In some cases I will admit breeders here in the USA have brought some of this on themselves by not knowing their puppy buyers well enough, and this is indeed a sad thing. Properly placing a puppy needs to go way beyond handing someone a questionnaire to fill out, accepting and check and then not having any further contact. However, it is a rather rare case that a puppy from a conscientious breeder ever finds itself turned in to an animal shelter or allowed to run the streets at will. Meanwhile, even veterinary hospitals are pushing spay/neuter heavily on the even most careful and conscientious of their dog owning clients. If they feel they must do this then they should at least be mindful of better ages for spay/neuter than four or even six months of age. Read this article. Print it out and take it to your own vet. Spay/neuter is indeed a good and necessary thing in many cases, especially in the case of your female dogs, referred to as "bitches" in the dog world, but when this is done it should happen at a more practical age than the now suggested four months in legislation pending across the country. I like to see full adult growth, waiting until bone plates have closed. More studies need to be done on this subject, but it should most definitely be up to the breeder of any puppy and then to the owner of that puppy or adult dog as to when and if spay/neuter should take place.