Forced Pet Sterilization Bill Fails

Katy Grimes: After being inactive for almost a year, the Assembly voted down a bill today that would have forced pet owners to sterilize dogs and cats. After being resurrected by the author, SB 250, by Sen. Dean Florez, D-Shafter, was sold as an alternative to euthanizing hundreds of thousands of stray dogs and cats every year by shelters and pounds.

But many pet groups fought the bill, with concerns that spanned pet ownership rights, burdens for enforcement on local governments, and higher costs to the state’s animal shelters.

Animal pounds and shelters are already overloaded with animals. Because of the worsening economy and overload of foreclosed homes, people who are no longer able to afford the high costs associated with caring for pets, turn them over to animal shelters, or set pets free in parks — where they are inevitably picked up by animal control officers.

Humane societies and animal shelters used to run very low-cost spay and neuter programs. The inexpensive sterilization clinics were so successful in reducing the number of stray cats and dogs, that many shelters up to the early 1990’s, actually ran out of adoptable pets.

But most animal shelters complained that the cost of adoption did not cover the costs to medically treat animals or the spaying and neutering. Fees went up, dramatically, to the point of discouraging pet adoptions.

The Sacramento SPCA charges $100 to adopt a dog, and $85 to adopt a cat. Spay and neuter fees are based on animal size: Little dogs under 30 pounds cost $50 for spaying (female), and $40 for neutering (males). Dogs 75 pounds or more cost $100 up to $120 for spaying and neutering. It’s expensive to adopt, and then sterilize the animal, which is required at the time of adoption.

To save money, many people purchase pets from pet stores or backyard breeders, which do not require sterilization. Pet owners should spay and neuter family pets, and many already do. But Florez’s bill approaches the stray pet problem from the wrong direction, as he seeks to dictate terms, turning off many people to pet ownership and animal rescuing.

The subsidy made sense because it actually worked in helping to keep the numbers of stray animals down.  Without a subsidy for shelters in this down economy, pet owners should be incentivized to spay and neuter, and not penalized for being a pet owner.

And even more important, the legislature has bigger fish to fry right now, than resurrecting stale, smelly old bills that have nothing to do with a budget for the state.

Florez’s bill was first introduced in February 2009, taking more than 18 months, and a great deal of time and cost, to work through the legislature. SB 250 is an excellent example of more wasteful government spending on a stupid bill that only distracted from the real work that needs to be done under the dome.

Posted Aug. 26, 2010