well overpopulation, starvation and abandonment are also painful…so there has to be a balance no? i don’t think it’s all about sexual control.

sweet mother of fancy pearl and miraculously horrible crap.

You would have to REALLY love your dog.

Excuse me Tudor, perhaps I don’t know English enough to understand some “shadings”, or perhaps I don’t know some canadian laws but… there is someone that have forced you to sterilize Ryder?
:-/

Tudor, I can relate. I felt bad getting Hannah ‘fixed’. Honestly though, I’d rather have her fixed than have to kick dogs off of her every five seconds in the dog park in Kingston. In the Yukon, dogs are notoriously NOT fixed very often. We have terrible vet resources, as in, not enough of them. I think it’s sort of the lesser of evils.

She still gets dry humped regularly. She’s a tall blonde. All the huskies want a piece!

Nice entry. I hear what you are saying. Pity about our society with things like this. hope she likes her fluffy bunny

Thanks for the support, everyone. The last couple of days have been really stressful; I’ll feel a lot better when I’ll have my dog back to normal.

Keren, the NYTimes did a wonderful series on the whole issue of animal abandonment. It definitely is a problem in the Western world. However, the problem is not that dogs go out and fuck like crazy (the stray population is pretty much under control). Rather, we live in a consumerist society where animals are just products that can be overproduced by puppy mills and so forth.

Fabio, Canada does not normalize behaviour through laws — it does so through ideology. The dominant ideology for dog ownership is that unless you desex your animal you’re an animal abusers that contributes to the problem of overpopulation.

Meghann — Hannah is quite a piece. I don’t blame those huskies. hehehe.

Darkle — Ryder seems to really like her fluffy bunny.

I may have to disagree with you just a little here. I agree that there are easier ways to ensure that a dog does not reproduce, but I am a big supporter of spaying/neutering pets. Watching a female dog during its heat cycle is tricky because a dog is in heat both before and after it actually starts to bleed. Essentially the dog is in estrus for 21 days. And it’s not always as simple as keeping an eye on your dog. Sometimes shit happens, and once dogs start mating you pretty much have to wait until they are finished because pulling them apart could result in internal damage for the female.
I also think that the stray population here is under control more due to the work of animal shelters and less due to the will of the dogs. I do not know if you have been to Italy ever, but the stray dog population over there is out of control. There were dogs everywhere and all the females I saw were either pregnant or showed signs of having given birth in the past. It was incredibly sad.
I do want to stress that I completely empathize with your situation though. Seeing your animal in pain at all is always incredibly hard, and a spay is major surgery. If anything, there should be more of a focus on neutering, as it is a less invasive procedure. Regardless, I also agree that the cost is ridiculous.
It was nice to read your post though. Even though I did not necessarily agree with everything you said, I 100% respect your opinions. I hope Ryder feels better soon.

I am with Megan on this one, Tudor. It does suck to see beautiful Ryder in pain and discomfort, but nothing some good pain meds and about a week’s time won’t cure. I am surprised that the animal shelter you adopted her from did not give you a discount on the spaying, no?

I just want you to know that you did the right thing in having Ryder spayed- not only would you have all the neighborhood dogs hanging around trying to get some Ryder-action whenever she went into heat, but unspayed females have a higher rate of uterine cancer and other related maladies.

If you really want to get scared, just look at my Flickr photo stream- I don’t have all these animals because I am a crazy cat collector. These were all abandoned, neglected animals that resulted when my lame-ass neighbors let their animals reproduce, and then let them roam and reproduce some more. Everyone in my neighborhood who is an animal-lover has at least 4 cats and a couple dogs that were once strays abandoned by some asshole owner. Although I have found good homes for several animals, I am still stuck with more than is feasible for my finances, and my peace of mind. I am still trying to find homes for at least 4 of them.

What I want to know is, why isn’t there a program to spay and neuter all the assholes in my neighborhood so they won’t breed? I’m just sayin’….

Megan said it much better than I could have, but that was pretty much what I was thinking…right down to the last words :)

When I was in Havana it was the same problem as in Italy. There dogs are like squirrels, and they have a big issue with the stray population. It’s quite common in Latin American countries from what I’ve heard.

Glad to hear Ryder is doing better — best wishes for happy doggies!

You can’t blame Tudor for the name thing. It’s my fault for being k-E-ren.

no worries, just don’t want you to get flack for my opinions :)