WHO NEEDS LOW-COST NEUTERING?
(From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1994.)
Low-cost neutering doubles the number of poor people who get their pets fixedand cuts animal shelter intakes in half.
Any doubts about the efficacy of low-cost neutering should be laid to rest by the results of a new national study carried out over the past six months by ANIMAL PEOPLE, under sponsorship of the North Shore Animal League. Perceiving lack of hard data on the efficacy of low-cost neutering and consequent veterinary resistance as the two main obstacles to the availability of low-cost programs, NSAL president John Stevenson commissioned the ANIMAL PEOPLE study in December 1993, on behalf of Spay USA, a project of NSAL.
"We'd like to know where we should be going with our programs," he said, "and we'd like to share our findings with the whole humane community, because what we do with Spay USA is refer callers to programs in their own towns, all over the U.S."
A total of 690 people completed questionaires of four to six pages in length to provide the data, among them 140 small animal veterinarians picked at random from demographically representative zip codes on the American Veterinary Medical Association membership list; 87 veterinarians known to be participating in various low-cost neutering programs, from the ANIMAL PEOPLE subscription lists; 89 pet owners found at random within demographically representative zip codes, contacted through use of a list compiled by a major marketing research company; 127 pet owners previously known to have patronized low-cost neutering programs; and the directors of 37 humane organizations in communities known to have low-cost neutering programs.
Accurately assessing the value of low-cost neutering is not so simple as just calculating births believed to have been prevented over a particular period of time. It also requires estimating how many neutering operations might not have been performed if the pets' owners didn't have the low-cost option. Also necessary to understand are the patterns in pet reproduction and overpopulation: which pets breed, and which litters end up homeless.
How many must be fixed?
The best available data from a range of sources agrees that a relatively small percentage of animals produces the entire pet overpopulation problem. ANIMAL PEOPLE found in a 1992 study carried out for the American Humane Association, published in our May 1993 issue, that "Even if the actual dog and cat reproduction rate is only one 10th of 1% of the possible maximum, three million irresponsible pet keepers (who do not neuter their animals) could put the euthanasia rate back to the 1985 level (then estimated at 17 million animals) as early as 1998. Three million irresponsible pet keepers would be under 5% of all pet keepers."
L. Robert Plumb of the Promotion of Animal Welfare Society, a neutering subsidy program in Paradise, California, has more recently estimated that dog overpopulation can be ended with just three more spays per year per 1,000 U.S. residents, while ending cat overpopulation will take four more spays per year per 1,000 residents. (See ad, page 14.) "On average," Plumb writes, "it is about 1% more pet owners who must spay their pets."
Thus it is possible that even if a low-cost neutering program results in relatively few additional surgeries, it can have a considerable impact upon local shelter intakes and euthanasias. We asked responding shelters for their intakes and euthanasias in 1990 and 1993. The average intake in 1990 was 2,950 dogs apiece and 3,060 cats, of whom 60% of the dogs were euthanized and 78% of the cats. These percentages compare well to the norms ANIMAL PEOPLE published in October 1993, after totaling and averaging recent intake and euthanasia statistics for more than 900 sheltersvirtually every shelter in 10 states, which together include a demographically representative 40% of the entire U.S. human population. That projection found that 52% of dogs received were euthanized, along with 76% of the cats. In September 1993 the American Humane Association reported norms even closer to the findings of the present study, based like the present study on random returns of a questionaire: a 61% euthanasia rate for dogs and a 75% euthanasia rate for cats.
Regardless of any achievements of low-cost neutering programs, the intake and euthanasia rate among responding shelters was expected to drop, as many surveys have documented significant declines in intake and euthanasia during the past few years. Even the annual AHA surveys, whose methodology is severely suspect, demonstrate no worse than a leveling off. The most thorough annual compilation of data is that of the Progressive Animal Welfare Society, which each year polls every shelter in the state of Washington. From 1990 through 1993, PAWS reported a drop of 18% in dog intakes, a drop of 14% in cat intakes, and a drop of 15% in overall animal intakes. Euthanasias fell 34% for dogs, 25% for cats, and 24% overall. Progress against pet overpopulation in Washington is believed to be coming more rapidly than elsewhere largely through the efforts of PAWS, including the passage of regulations governing dog and cat breeding by King County, PAWS' home county, in 1992.
By 1993, the shelters responding to the ANIMAL PEOPLE survey took in an average of 2,283 dogs apiece, a 22% drop; euthanized an average of 1,570 dogs apiece, a 35% drop; took in 2,112 cats, a 31% drop ; and euthanized 1,895 cats, also a 31% drop. The euthanasia rate for dogs fell to just 49%, even as the adoption rate for dogs declined 23%. Unfortunately, the adoption rate for cats also fell, by 2%, producing an 11% rise in the feline euthanasia rate despite the drop in hard numbers.
The falling adoption rates, which don't show up in any available state or national statistics, may also reflect progress against pet overpopulation. As fewer dogs are born, the number of puppies coming into shelters declinesthe biggest single source of adoptable dogs. The number of vicious, diseased, and injured dogs picked up by animal control agencies also declines, but not as quickly, since most of these are adult dogs, typically born at least a year before they reach a shelter. Many of the unadoptable dogs received by a shelter that began a low-cost neutering program during the past four years were born before the program started.
Both cat and dog adoptions also decline as result of other tactics used to fight pet overpopulation, e.g. higher neutering deposits and/or refusal to adopt out fertile animals. It is possible that the apparent decline in adoptions by these shelters is a statistical fluke, perhaps resulting because 25 shelters provided 1993 data while only 18 provided comparable data for 1990. The addition of one or two high-volume shelters with low adoption rates could have accounted for the discrepancybut apparently did not.
Declining adoptions due to tougher policies can be offset by improving promotion, as described in our May 1994 feature on the NSAL high-volume adoption program.
Who uses low-cost programs?
To find out how many of the animals neutered by low-cost programs might not have been neutered otherwise, we asked animal shelter directors, veterianians from the AVMA list, and veterinarians who belong to low-cost neutering programs to characterize their clients by age, sex, ethnicity, and income level. Important deviations from the U.S. norms are highlighted; above norms are in boldface, while below norms are in bold italic.
AGE U.S. SHELTERS SHELTERS AVMA LOW-COST
(19+) (dropoffs) (adoptors) VETS vets
Reg. Low
<30 23% 25% 22% 22% 25% 28%
30-49 41% 44% 53% 41% 40% 37%
50-64 19% 25% 17% 25% 24% 20%
65-plus 18% 6% 8% 12% 13% 11%
SEX M/F M/F M/F M/F M/F M/F
49/51 40/60 29/71 38/62 36/64 34/66
ETHNICITY
Caucasian 80.3% 83% 84% 76% 78% 76%
Afro-American 12.1% 7% 8% 9% 7% 12%
Hispanic 9.0% 6% 4% 10% 8% 8%
Asian Am. 2.9% 2% 2% 5% 4% 4%
Native Am. .8% 2% 1% 2% 4% 4%
INCOME
Low inc. 19.6% 41% 19% 18% 21% 46%
Mid. inc. 54.7% 42% 49% 54% 60% 46%
Up. inc. 25.7% 17% 32% 28% 19% 9%
We provided no definition of "lower income" on our questionaires, but defined it for analytical purposes as half of the U.S. median, which puts about half of the group above the official poverty line but close to it. Upper income is defined as 1.67 times the U.S. median, at which level lifestyle differences from middle-income people appear.
The validity of the survey base was affirmed by the close parallels between most of our findings and the U.S. population norms as defined by the Bureau of the Census.
As expected:
* Senior citizens are markedly less likely to drop animals off at shelters, adopt animals from shelters, and seek veterinary care of any kind, at any price. Since the lower involvement of senior citizens is consistent, not peculiar to neutering, we surmise that senior citizens simply keep fewer petsa consequence of fixed incomes, apartment living, the anti-pet rules at many retirement communities, and anxiety over the fate of the animals after the owner's death.
* Afro-Americans both drop off and adopt disproportionately few animals at shelters even though the number of Afro-Americans who use low-cost neutering indicates they do not keep fewer pets. ANIMAL PEOPLE explored the reasons for Afro-American underinvolvement with shelters in our January/February 1993 issue, concluding that the most important is the lack of effort by many humane societies to attract Afro-Americans. As anticipated, Afro-Americans are also under-represented among veterinary clients. The explan-ation here, however, would appear to be strictly economic, as Afro-American patronage of low-cost neutering rises to the percentage of Afro-Americans in the general public. Apparently the will and desire to combat pet overpopulation are present among Afro-Americans as much as among any other group, even when the means to do so are restricted by low income and the lack of inner city veterinary clinics.
* Hispanic Americans are under-involved with animal shelters, both dropping off and adopting somewhat fewer animals than their population would indicate, but are not significantly under-represented among veterinary patrons, either at full or discount prices. Indeed there is a hint that Hispanic Americans may be slightly more inclined than Caucasians to pay full price for veterinary care. This may suggest a greater latent concern for animal well-being among Hispanic people than is generally recognized by Caucasian activists, who tend to notice bullfighting, cockfighting, fiestas including ritual torment of animals, and charro rodeo, while overlooking the semi-vegetarian nature of Mexican cookery (albeit vegetarian perhaps mainly for economic reasons), the virtual non-participation of Hispanics in hunting and trapping, and the high regard for cats evident in many Hispanic communities.
* Lower income people are more than twice as likely to abandon animals at shelters than middle or upper income people, and expectedly make up nearly half of the low-cost neutering clientele, but are not significantly under-represented among either adopters or patrons of veterinary clinics in general. The numbers clearly illustrate that lower income people both need access to discount neutering and make use of it when it is available.
* There is a hint in the relatively high proportion of males who drop animals off at shelters, together with the slight over-representation of Caucasians, that Caucasian males may account for a disproportionate share of excess pet breeding. Thus it may be that Caucasian males, who also account for 97% of the licensed hunters and trappers in the U.S., are a key group to target for humane education. Yet addressing female family members might be far more productiive. Nearly three out of four people who adopt animals from shelters are women, and women also seek veterinary care twice as often as men. This may not mean that men care less about pets; it may just reflect the traditional female role as the family caregiver. A 1992 Massachusetts SPCA survey of 500 households in the Boston area found that "Female pet owners appear to be twice as likely as male pet owners to influence the spay/neuter decision for their pets (74% vs. 38%). This is especially true for cats (77% vs. 38%) and for all pets in low-income households (84% vs. 25%)." [The percentages overlap.]
* About 9% of low-cost neutering patrons appear to be in the upper income bracket. It may not be possible to persuade these people that taking advantage of low-cost neutering is both inappropriate and detrimental to the programs, seriously annoying the veterinarians who are sacrificing their own income to perform surgery at cost. We have no hard data to indicate whether these people have been poor and are afraid of becoming poor again; can't resist a bargain; or are simply stingy.
Results
Despite the participation of people who don't need the discounts, low-cost neutering is clearly reaching a noteworthy percentage of animals who would not otherwise be neutered. Low-income people make up nearly half of the clientele of low-cost neutering programsand neuter their animals at twice the rate one would expect from their numbers as a percentage of the general population when low-cost neutering is available.
The value of low-cost neutering is further evident from pet ownership patterns, below. The columns headed "Pets" state the average number of each kind of animal kept. "Fixed" states the percentage who have been neutered. By way of further establishing the norms for neutering, additional columns cite the findings of the 1992 MSPCA survey and a 1992 survey of residents of the Santa Clara Valley, in California, done for the National Pet Alliance.
ANIMAL PET OWNERS LOW COST MSPCA NPA
Pets Fixed Pets Fixed Pets Fixed Pets Fixed
Male dogs .56 66% .58 45%
Female dogs .70 73% .54 62%
ALL DOGS 1.26 70% 1.12 54% 1.20 73%
Male cats .85 87% 1.08 71%
Female cats .79 80% 1.24 65%
ALL CATS 1.64 86% 2.32 68% 1.60 87% 1.65 86%
The ANIMAL PEOPLE general population sample base reported almost the same rate of neutering as the MSPCA and the National Pet Alliance found. This is encouraging, since the ANIMAL PEOPLE sampling areas were picked to represent the whole U.S., whereas both greater Boston and the Santa Clara Valley are well above the U.S. norms in affluence and level of education, and therefore have been generally thought to have higher rates of neutering. It is possible, however, that our sampling method tended to exclude response from the people least likely to neuter animalsthe poorest and least educated.
The need for neutering among low-cost clients is obvious in the numbers. While low-cost clients are evidently aware of the need to neuter, the percentage of their animals who are neutered falls at least 11% below the national norms in every category. The percentage of unneutered female cats owned by low-cost clients is of special concern, given the extreme fecundity of felines and the high euthanasia rate for homeless cats. Note that low-cost clients own 21% more male cats than the national norm; 36% more female cats; and 29% more cats overall. The greater rate of cat ownership may directly reflect the lower level of neutering.
ANIMAL PEOPLE considered the possibility that some low-cost clients may be cat rescuers and may therefore be picking up strays and ferals who are in need of neutering. A handful of active rescuers could significantly distort the normsbut the survey question specified pets, and the questionaire data did not indicate distortion by rescuers as a genuinely visible factor in producing these results.
Age of neutering
We also inquired as to the age of neutering for animals who were neutered, and the number of puppies or kittens born to each female animal prior to neutering:
PET OWNERS LOW-COST
Litters Births % fixed Litters Births % fixed
each each by 6 mos. each each by 6 mos.
Male dog 41% 52%
Female dog .15 0.38 39% .09 0.52 29%
Male cat 75% 79%
Female cat .14 0.40 85% .19 0.48 66%
Female dogs owned by low-cost clients have fewer litters but produce more puppies apiece and are neutered (if at all) later in life. These anomalies are explained by noting that there were six deliberate dog breeders in total (7%) among the general population sample, who owned 9% of the sexually intact dogs, but were 12 deliberate dog breeders among the low-cost clients (10%), who owned 18% of the sexually intact dogs. Because of errors in completing the survey form, we can't compile statistics that exclude deliberate breeding. However, it is reasonable to assume that the greater instance of dog breeding among the low-cost clients accounts for both the higher birth rate and the lower percentage of dogs who are neutered at age six months.
Low-cost neutering clients are probably more likely to be deliberate breeders because backyard dog-breeding looks to many like a low-budget way to make money. In truth, it isn't; income rarely equals cost, even at low levels of care, but the costs are spread out over several months, while the returns come all at once, creating the illusion of profit where none exists.
The cat data once again shows the need for low-cost neutering: low-cost clients are 22% less likely to fix cats prior to sexual maturity, the cats they own are 26% more likely to have a litter before neutering, and thus these cats are 17% more fecund. Neutering these cats sooner must become a humane priority.
Our data corresponds closely, if not precisely, to the MSPCA finding that "Among households that eventually spay or neuter their pets, litters are born beforehand in 20% of the cat-owning households and in 21% of the dog-owning households." Our data also corresponds to the finding of the National Pet Alliance that "16.3% of the owned, altered female cats had a litter of kittens before they were spayed." The pre-neutering fecundity of the animals in our samplings runs below the MSPCA norm, but above the NPA norm.
Overall, the rate of neutering by age centers on six months for both dogs and cats. The first table below gives the percentage of animals who are neutered at each age. The second table gives the percentage who have been neutered as of each age.
PET Fixed Fixed Fixed Fixed Fixed
@ 6 wks @ 3 mos @ 6 mos @ 1 yr later
Male dog 3% 11% 41% 14% 32%
Female dog 1% 1% 46% 17% 30%
Male cat 3% 7% 68% 10% 9%
Female cat 2% 9% 54% 16% 14%
ANIMAL % fixed % fixed % fixed % fixed % fixed
@ 6 wks @ 3 mos @ 6 mos @ 1 yr total
Male dog 2% 7% 29% 36% 53%
Female dog 1% 2% 36% 47% 67%
Male cat 2% 7% 58% 66% 76%
Female cat 1% 8% 46% 58% 70%
If veterinarians decided when each animal should be neutered, the numbers would stack up quite differently:
ANIMAL Prefer to fix Prefer to fix Prefer to fix Prefer to fix
@ 6 weeks @ 3 months @ 6 months @ 9 months
AVMA LOW AVMA LOW AVMA LOW AVMA LOW
Male dog 6% 4% 26% 35% 63% 60% 6% 1%
Female dog 5% 2% 26% 37% 68% 60% <1%
Male cat 10% 5% 31% 37% 54% 56% <1% 2%
Female cat 7% 4% 29% 41% 63% 56% <1%
There is no column for vets who prefer to neuter animals at one year of age because among the 227 veterinary respondents, none preferred to neuter any animal at more than nine months of age. In general, low-cost ves prefer to neuter dogs earlier, but more vets from the AVMA list are doing very early neutering. Both groups are adamant about neutering dogs and cats prior to sexual maturity, certainly before they give birth to litters.
Nonetheless, a disconcerting number of pet owners still seem to think an animal should reach a particular age and/or have a litter prior to neutering. Once again the ANIMAL PEOPLE findings are compared and contrasted with those of the MSPCA and the NPA. Many discrepancies result because the MSPCA and NPA surveys asked pet owners to identify just one reason per animal, whereas we asked respondents to identify all reasons applicable.
WHY NOT FIXED? Male Fem. MSPCA Male Fem. MSPCA NPA
dog dog dog cat cat cat cat
Intend to breed 26% 42% 27% 8% 12% 17% 18%
Too young 5% 12% 13% 6% 18% 44% 36%
Too old 9% 9% 8% 2%
Hasn't had litter 14% 10%
Costs too much 35% 37% 0% 62% 74% 22% 12%
Hard to get to a vet 7% 9% 27% 24% 5%
Can't see vet in day 5% 12% 25% 18% 4%
Not necessary 12% 5% 32% 4% 14% 4%
Neutering isn't healthy 2% 2%
Neutering violates rights 1%
Negligence 11% 6% 18%
(continued)