Soapbox

Excuse me while I climb up on this thing a minute....


Now I know I hardly ever get up here. I am not really one to go off about something. My strong desire for personal freedom means I rarely tell people what to do. But a conversation at work today really hit me, and I wanted to take this time to talk about something very important.

Nuts.
You heard me. Nuts.
As in dog nuts.
As in they should come off.


My friend at work is always talking to me about his dog. Come to think of it, most of them do talk to me about their dogs, probably because they know how much I love dogs and they are trying to establish that common ground. This friend, though, his stories about his dog always involve his dog running away, being gone, or having just come back from running away. He is always asking me how he can stop this from happening, and every time I ask, "does he still have his nuts?"
He tried telling me he wasn't sure and asked how you could tell. "Well, you know what they feel like, right? Just reach on back there." (folks, don't try this at home if you don't know how your dog will react to a personal grope - I only told him this because I could tell from what he told me about his dog that he could get away with something like this).
Anyway, the other day he brought me a picture of his dog, and I said, "Oh look," putting my finger over part of the picture,"there's his nuts. Still haven't gotten those taken off, eh?"
He smiles and says, "I still want him to be able to...have fun...you know?"
Oh boy. Come on, other techs out there, voice your opinion - would you have set this guy straight?
"At whose expense?" I asked him. I told him about the overpopulation of our animal shelters, how there are thousands of unwanted puppies born every year, not enough homes for them, that someone has to kill them, and that I know that because I used to be that person, the one who had to euthanize America's leftover dog population. I told him a little about the medical expenses the owner of the lucky female whom he impregnates might have to deal with, especially since he is a large dog and who knows what size she might be (can you define "dystocia"?), about the risk to her and the risk to his life if he continues to roam as a result of his testerone driven brain.

All this might seem hypocritical of me if you consider the fact that I myself have an unneutered male dog. However, there is a difference. My dog is never allowed to roam free, would never be allowed to, and if he ran away even for an hour I would be freaking out and be building a new fence. He will only be allowed to breed to another registered purebred Australian Sheperd who also has a superior pedigree and who has traits complementary to his own, and only after he passes a brucellosis test and has his hips OFA certified. He has had his nuts now for the entire three and a half years of his life and has never been called to use them, mostly because he has not proven himself as a champion show dog yet. The entire reason for the sport of competition conformation is to assess the quality of an animal as compared to the breed standard to determine reproductive fitness. If all of those things I mentioned above make me sound elistist, so be it.

I remember when working at the animal shelter being offended when I heard that one of the local veterinarians recommended that her clients not adopt from the shelter. She suggested that if people were looking for a dog, they should only buy it from a reputable breeder at a certain age and with certain characteristics and health background. At the time, I was trying to get dogs out the door of the shelter before they ended up on the "kill floor". We euthanized 125 dogs every other day. This was in a small town, by the way. We had five dogs per kennel and some of the saddest doggy scenarios you can ever imagine.

Now, though, I understand. In a perfect world, there would be no need for animal shelters. No one would ever buy a puppy from a pet store because they would understand those puppies come from puppy mills and have sketchy health and genetic history. Don't even get me started on Trader's Village or any of these facilities where large amounts of unvaccinated puppies are sold en masse off of floors contaminated with parvo and bordetella spores. In a perfect world, we would all be select our puppies based on what breed would be best for our family lifestyle, and we would keep our pets until they died of old age and not surrender them to the shelter when we wanted to move. I used to get so angry when I volunteered at the animal shelter in Austin and I would see on surrender form as the reason for surrender: "moving to apartment that does not allow pets". You have a choice, people! There are apartments out there that do allow pets (although I will say it is getting harder to find), and when you assume responsibility for an animal's life, that is a part of the deal. I have had to live in an apartment since I have had dogs, and I just choose the apartment that allows them and pay the small pet deposit.

Anyway, it makes me really upset when people do not think about the consequences of their actions, particularly when it will affect the life of an animal. This is why a recent situation involving my friend had me so worked up. It is not enough to simply "own" an animal; you must practice responsibility for your animal along with that. It is part of the bargain. If your male dog is a mixed breed, has a habit of roaming, or has ever shown aggression (whether you believe it or not people), please....get those nuts removed. They won't even miss them and it won't take away from the dog's personality or his or your "manliness".