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New Year! New Houston Dog Blog!

I must admit that I have been a little slow on posting over the holidays!  My New Year's Resolution is to be a better blogger!  We will be adding more categories, interviews and exclusives.  In addition, I will be adding a weekly editorial, where I will share my opinions of the week - be that of TV, movies or world affairs.  I hope to make them witty and informative and most of all -- FUN!  More exciting news as the year begins!  Have a safe and happy New Year with your furry friends! 

Ryan, Isabella and the staff at Houston Dog Blog

People Magazine's People Pets!

People Magazine has started a new pet online community.  I am still learning how to navigate, but in the meantime wanted to share with everyone.  Click here to visit Isabella's profile.  Make sure you sign up and friend request us!

Second Article About Importance of Spaying and Neutering! -- Part 2

And from our friends at the Houston Chronicle!

Rolling to the rescue

City Council grants funds to mobile spay-neuter program. Will Houstonians step up?

Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle

Dec. 29, 2008, 9:58PM

In a winter when many nonprofits are malnourished, City Council has strengthened one of the best. On Dec. 17, members granted $500,000 to the nonprofit Spay Neuter Assistance Program (better known as SNAP). These funds will only make a difference, though, if Houstonians multiply their effect.

Houston's epidemic of stray animals is notorious nationwide. Though records at BARC, the Bureau of Animal Regulation and Control, are chaotic, past Chronicle calculations put its euthanasia rate from June 2007 to July 2008 at a sickening 73 percent.

Spaying and neutering is the one rational way to stop this expensive and needless butchery. SNAP has led the way on this, running spay/neuter clinics and a free, mobile animal surgery unit that visits low-income neighborhoods. Residents in these areas typically have little money for spaying and neutering (which costs about $100). Just as importantly, many people don't grasp the cruelty, drain on their own local resources and health risks of failing to neuter animals.

SNAP vans roll into neighborhoods, educating residents and performing a day of surgeries for as many pets as they can accommodate. The nonprofit typically takes in about 23 animals in a morning, then treats, watches and returns them to their owners by 4 in the afternoon. The rolling units can fit in about half the requests they get for each visit, said veterinarian James Weedon, SNAP operations director.

One half of City Council's grant allots $50,000 a year for SNAP mobile units over five years, in the form of $20 subsidies per surgery. SNAP raises money to cover the rest. The mobile unit currently neuters about 5,000 area animals every year. The grant will allow SNAP to add about 2,500 more animals to that number. By way of comparison, a mayoral task force said the city's five major shelters killed 77,000 animals in 2005.

In other words, council's grant recognizes that preventing strays is both humane and fiscally responsible. But it won't come close to curing our epidemic of stray animals or to ending their relentless slaughter in shelters unless more city residents take action.

The other half of the grant, which amounts to an additional $50,000 per year, acknowledges this limitation. These funds can go to a mutually agreed-upon project by SNAP and BARC to maximize their spaying/neutering efforts. One possibility, Weedon said, might be a BARC neighborhood sweep to pick up strays, followed by the mobile unit to operate on pets.

This is good government: paying in prevention while requiring initiatives to stretch tax dollars furthest. Nevertheless, this $50,000 a year is trifling next to the waves of animals Houston sends to their deaths every day. Trifling, that is, unless those funds are matched by personal action.

Spaying/neutering one's own pet, helping SNAP educate others or urging local celebrities to publicize spaying/neutering — all could help as much as money to end the daily slaughter.

A recent video by singer Sarah McLachlan prompted $30 million in donations to the SPCA. Houstonians, prominent or ordinary, surely can find their own ways to demand decent treatment for animals in our city.

For more information about SNAP: www.snapus.org.

Great Article on Importance of Spaying and Neutering! - Part 1

Great Article from Jeffrey Veatch at The Greenville News! 

The Greenville News Editorial

Pet overpopulation costs society dearly

By Jeffrey Veatch • December 30, 2008

One of the current issues in our society is the treatment, or maltreatment, of the pet population in the U.S. Spaying and neutering pets is the best way to currently control the pet population. Although there are up-front costs using this method, there are even larger costs avoided as a result. Some of those costs involve the emotionally taxing euthanization of millions of unwanted pets every year. But besides the emotional toll taken on those who try to help unwanted pets, there is a large economic toll taken as well.

Thinking in terms of pet overpopulation, we can see that allowing excessive numbers of cats and dogs to be "produced" has a significant cost. When society has to deal with feeding, housing and caring for a population of pets that is well beyond the optimal output level, we find that the opportunity costs are significant. That is why the cost of spaying and neutering pets is a minor cost in comparison. For instance, the cost of having a pet "fixed" is in the range of $200. The lifetime cost for a litter of unwanted pets is well over $1,000 depending on the exact fate that the litter suffers. If you multiply those costs by the number of animals that enter shelters every year, the opportunity costs lost to society as a whole become clearer. That nationwide total annual cost is on the order of billions of wasted dollars.

If pets are not spayed or neutered, the puppies or kittens that they have must be cared for. If they are purebred dogs, they are often sold for a profit. However, mixed-breed animals that are allowed to give birth to litters are in a much more difficult spot. Their newborns are very rarely well taken care of and often wind up in shelters. These shelters do not make any economic profit and are either taxpayer-funded or run only from donations of others. This spillover cost to the rest of society adds up to quite a bill, as previously mentioned.

Some statistics from the United States Humane Society: On average, 6 million to 8 million animals enter shelters each year. These are pets that are generally products of dogs or cats that are not spayed or neutered. And, on average 50 percent of them are euthanized because of lack of resources to maintain them or inability to find a permanent home. Most of those euthanized are kittens.

There are costs to taxpayers in the form of building and maintaining the shelter structures, paying employees and paying for food, medicine and vet care. If donations are given or people spend time as volunteers, this is also a cost to society as those goods are used for care of excess animals versus more marginal benefits. Volunteer time can be cost-counted as time not spent on activities adding true value to society.

One of the reasons that so many animals are turned in to shelters year after year is the fact that the benefit that people often gain from the adoption or purchase of pets isn't what they had expected. When the "cost" of their pets gets too much, some people are quick to pass off their pets to shelters with the belief that someone else will adopt or care for them instead. These costs can include food and medical expenses.

However, the bigger "costs" that people often give up their pets for are house repairs or the time it takes to properly train and exercise their pets. When people are not educated as to the true costs of owning pets, particularly active dogs such as Labradors or other typical working-class canines, they often fail to understand just what marginal cost is required to keep them healthy and happy.

And when these pets take out their boredom inside an owner's house, they can be relegated to a life on a chain outside -- if they are lucky. The unlucky ones are banished to a shelter, where they often stand a less than 50-50 chance of finding a new home. If they cannot be rehomed, they are often killed. However this is only after taking up resources that society at large pays -- instead of owners who didn't get the benefit they thought they would receive once they bought that "cute puppy in the window."