NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Jon Austin, DVM with Hutchinson Small Animal Hospital asks you to think of your pets and help keep them safe by spaying or neutering at your veterinarian's recommended schedule.
"There's always been more pets than there've been available people to take care of them," Austin said. "It's a function of mathematics and reproductive capability. They can just make more of themselves too fast. That's why the responsibility lies on the pet owners and just everybody to spay and neuter their pet. It's never been more important than it is right now. The shelters all across the nation are overfull and turning people away, which that's not what they want to do. I know the Hutchinson shelter has been overfull as well. They want to help those pets. They want to find homes for them. They want to keep them alive. Sadly, that's not what's happening right now. Euthanasias are up across the nation in shelters and in those kinds of facilities."
Other than breed-specific dogs with jobs like hunting or herding, there's really no need to breed.
"No one needs to be breeding right now," Austin said. "There are very few needs in terms of animals being bred. I know there'll always be purebred dogs being made and people wanting those and a market for them. The doodles in the last five years have kind of taken over the world. They're pretty wonderful. I've got a lot of those patients. I see why people are drawn to them and like them, and maybe there's a cause or a home for breeding doodles right now. But man, just go spend a minute at any animal shelter and you'll see there's just a ton of animals whose sadly their lives are never even getting started. They're having to be put to sleep because there's nobody to take them."
People who were home during the pandemic are headed back to work because of the tough economy and that is making things more difficult.
"Apparently those people now are casting off those animals or relinquishing those animals and turning them back into shelters," Austin said. "It just, you know, amazes me, blows my mind that you could take a pet, grow a relationship and love it and then surrender it. I just, I cannot imagine that. It's a lifetime choice. It's a 10 to 15 year commitment when you take a dog or a cat, you know, you kind of agree to give that animal a home for its entire life. That's certainly the way it should be and the way we like to see it."
Austin said most animal hospitals in Hutchinson can spay or neuter a young animal for a very reasonable fee, and it is much less expensive than potential reproductive problems or cancer could be.