08/19/04 Don't Kill - Spay and Neuter!
Animal Friends asks citizens to act responsibly to their companion animals
Animal Friends in cooperation with the Shelter for Abandoned Animals of the City of Zagreb in Dumovec organizes an action in order to educate citizens on necessity of spaying and neutering of companion animals.
On Thursday, August 19, 2004, at 12 noon, in Gajeva ulica in front of Hotel Dubrovnik, our activists will set an info stall and hand out leaflets promoting spaying and neutering of dogs and cats.
Our info stall will be visited by guardians with their spayed and neutered pets that were once placed in the shelter in Dumovec. The guardians will demonstrate their human gesture of adopting homeless animals from the shelter and advocate the purpose and necessity of spaying and neutering. Detailed information on spaying and neutering will be provided by Tatjana Zajec, veterinarian and manager of the Shelter for Abandoned Animals of the City of Zagreb in Dumovec.
By this action which is directly linked to previous campaign "Family at seaside, dog in the street?!," Animal Friends wants to appeal to the people of Zagreb to learn a lesson from tragic massacre of animals in Greece before the Olympics, and to treat their own pets as well as strays with more consciousness.
We will use this opportunity to ask citizens not to abandon their companion animals but to take care of them adequately and this way prevent more strays which end up starving and dying of thirst, run over by car or in animal shelters, what is absolutely inappropriate as permanent solution.
Just one cat and all her young in a period of seven years can give birth to 420,000 kittens, and one mother dog and her young during the same period of time can give birth to 67,000 puppies. The only prevention of this problem is spaying and neutering of owned companion animals and strays.
Spaying and neutering prevents uncontrolled enlargement of population of companion animals, unnecessary violent killings, number of unwanted puppies/kittens and everlasting problem of finding good homes for them. Furthermore, spaying and neutering prevents problems of walking your female dog while in heat and gathering male dogs around your house for same reason, the psychological suffering of animal and running away from home searching for mate in order to satisfy natural urge. Spaying and neutering is ideal prevention of diseases such as breast or uterus cancer, the cancer of prostate or testicular cancer, and spayed and neutered animals live longer. Nowadays these surgical procedures are preformed routinely and just after few hours animal is recovered.
On our info stand we will advise citizens to adopt homeless animals from the shelter in Dumovec, or any other, and to sign a petition to support a proposal for new Animal Welfare Act that now waits to be discussed on in Parliament.
