Let's make animal rescue obsolete

Every morning I wake up to my clock radio giving me the top story of the day. Recently it has been some variation on the theme of "If you thought the economy was bad yesterday, wait until we tell you how much worse it is today."

Not surprisingly, the financial crunch is hitting our community services, including one that serves animals: the Humane Society of the Pikes Peak Region. Its operating budget for next year is likely to be decimated, and without funding, lots of the services we have grown to expect from it will be in jeopardy.

One measure being taken to increase its revenue is instituting a cat-licensing program within the city limits starting Thursday. This means cats need to be current on their rabies vaccinations, and owners must pay a small fee to get a tag for a collar that shows that the cat is street legal - even though the cat should be curled up comfortably inside the house rather than roaming the streets.

My first response to the new regulation was an eye roll when I thought about what a pain it was going to be to explain it to cat owners and encourage them to comply with the law.

Then I had an idea: Why don't we, as a community, work together to put the Humane Society out of business entirely? Here is my plan.

Phase 1: Involves the adoption of every animal at the Humane Society, as well as those at all the rescue organizations, into loving homes. This would have to be coupled with the understanding that the commitment is to care for that animal until the end of his or her natural life span, not until the dog chews up your favorite shoes or the cat leaves one too many clumps of black hair on the tan carpet.

We would never consider moving somewhere we couldn't have our pets any more than we would consider moving somewhere we couldn't have our children.

In the rare cases that we cannot honor our promise to care for our adopted pets for the rest of their lives, we will find someone else who will agree to take over our responsibility rather than dumping our animals out the door and assuming some stranger will come to their rescue.

Phase 2: Spay or neuter every pet animal. I cannot tell you how often owners are completely surprised, sometimes again and again, that their intact female dog is suddenly pregnant by the intact male dog that hopped the neighbor's fence down the way.

Responsible breeding is difficult, expensive and lots of work. Only dedicated experts should ever consider breeding their pets. The world does not need more litters of mixed breed puppies with hip dysplasia. If the cost of spaying and neutering is an obstacle, we are fortunate to have Hamlett Spay and Neuter Clinic in our community. It is subsidized and able to provide spays and neuters at an incredibly low cost.

Phase 3: Keeping proper control of our pets. No matter how sweet and friendly our dog is, or how much she loves to roam the neighborhood, we will make sure that our property is secure so the dog does not run loose.

Our pets will have proper identification, preferably with a microchip, but at least with a tag on the collar that will get them returned to us immediately if they do escape.

We will keep our dogs on leashes when in public spaces even though our dogs are the best trained, best behaved, nicest dogs in the city. Our cats will stay indoors in spite of the fact that the local fox population may go hungry as a result.

The beauty of this plan is that with only the minimum of basic responsible pet ownership, we could have the staff members at the Humane Society sitting around twiddling their thumbs all day. Until that day arrives, however, paying the cat license fee is one small way we can continue to provide for some of the most helpless and needy beings in our community.

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Anne Pierce is a Colorado Springs veterinarian and co-owner of High Plains Veterinary Hospital, a Colorado Springs small-animal clinic. Reach her at petdocs@highplainsvet.com.