Monday, July 17, 2000
Stray dogs a problem in Tristate
Lack of pet sterilization root of overpopulation
By Travis Mayo
The Cincinnati Enquirer
FORT MITCHELL — The 2-year-old chow mix's furry head turned left and right as he passed between 15 animal cages Tuesday at the Kenton County Animal Shelter.
About 10 feet from his final destination, the dog stopped, planted his hind legs into the floor and refused to go farther.
The chow mix had been abandoned in the shelter's lot nearly a week before. Now, he was being walked to the euthanasia room.
In about three minutes, his breath would cease.
“You never get used to it, but I've been trained by people who are the best, and I don't want people who don't care about animals the way I do to be doing this job,” said Dan Evans, 30, the Kenton County animal-control officer who was at the other end of the leash Tuesday.
“I want to make sure that they're put down in hands like mine— loving and caring,” he said. “There's no solution here. It's like a revolving door. People are discarding animals like old pairs of tennis shoes.”
About 58 million dogs live in American households, according to the Humane Soci ety of the United States. An estimated 8 to 12 million animals enter animal-control shelters like the one in Kenton County each year, and up to 60 percent of them are euthanized.
It's a problem that cuts across all Tristate areas, caused by failure to spay or neuter pets and by irresponsible owners.
Aline Summe, director of the Kenton County Animal Shelter, has worked with the problem for 15 years. Hershelter takes in 250 to 300 dogs each month.
“I'd like to think we're becoming more concerned with the issue, but we're not,” Ms. Summe said.
While the city of Covington and the Kenton County Dog Authority pick up most of the county's animals, they all end up at the same shelter.
Since 1986, the number of dogs brought into the shelter has stayed near 3,000 each year.
Last year, 2,882 dogs were housed in those cages. Of that number, about half — 1,486 — were euthanized, 820 were adopted, and 575 were returned to their owners.
The numbers aren't baffling only in Kenton County.
In Boone County, director Becky Reiter said more than 30 percent of the 1,444 dogs that came into her shelter last year were euthanized.. Campbell County Animal Control director Lisa Jackson has seen many of the same figures in her eight years on the job. In Warren County, Ohio's second-fastest growing county, the animal population also is increasing.
Mari Lee Schwarzwalder has been executive director of the Humane Association of Warren County for 30 years. She said 2,770 dogs came into the shelter last year.
Shelter directors also say population growth and development also play a role in burgeoning numbers of abandoned pets.
But failure to spay or neuter your pet is the root of the problem.
“That's the only thing that's going to stop this horrible ordeal that shelters go through,” Ms. Schwarzwalder said. “If people would spay and neuter their animals, we wouldn't have to put them to sleep.”
Some shelters, like Boone County, have spay and neuter assistance programs. The Boone County shelter sponsors an annual “Dog Walk” each October, which raises money to give to pet own ers who need cash for spaying or neutering.
Last year, the walk brought in $1,500.
Ms. Reiter also said that the shelter is trying to organize a behavior modification program that she hopes would lead to more responsible ownership. She said some animals are dumped simply because the owners don't know how to take care of them.
That, directors say, shows a lack of education.
“People think they can put them in the back yard and give them food and water, and it's good enough, but it's not,” Ms. Jackson said. “We just need to be more educated.”
Another contributing factor to the stray situation is the number of dogs who come into shelters without tags.
Ms. Summe said that about 25 of those nearly 300 dogs that come in each month are wearing tags. She said tags could tie lost animals to owners, or to veterinarians who might know the owners.
But without the tags — which cost from $1.50 to $10, depending on the county — there's no way to tell from where the dog came.
Simply writing a phone number inside a dog's collar would help.
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