Puppy season sparks call for de-sexing campaign

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Wairarapa Times-Age

By Shanna Crispin

It's puppy season and consequently the Wairarapa SPCA is over-run with young pooches – a situation that centre manager Val Ball says could be avoided by a national dog de-sexing campaign.

"We have never had this many puppies before" Mrs Ball said. In the past three months the Wairarapa SPCA has taken in 24 puppies – 14 of which were put down due to a lack of homes.

"These are dogs that do not need to be born" Mrs Ball said.

She proposes that a "New Zealand wide de-sexing campaign needs to be looked at and incentives need to be offered to dog owners to have their dogs de-sexed".





This year the SPCA ran their second Wairarapa wide cat de-sexing campaign that was possible due to grants from the Masterton District Council, the Greater Wellington Regional Council and the Tararua District Council.
Cat owners were able to buy a $15 voucher from the SPCA to have their cat de-sexed, with the grants making up the cost. Throughout the April-May campaign 335 cats were de-sexed.

All dogs adopted from the SPCA are de-sexed as a preventative measure. When adopting a dog the new owner pays $150 in total, which includes all vaccinations and the cost of de-sexing.

The cost of getting a dog de-sexed without the SPCA subsidy can range from $110-$155 for a male and $185-$260 for a female, depending on the size of the dog.

Although the Masterton council "does not believe there is currently a puppy problem" dog control team leader Lee Ball is fully behind a national de-sexing campaign for dogs.

Mr Ball said that as statistics show de-sexed dogs cause less problems because of their lessened desire to wander, "more neutered dogs in the community creates a safer environment".

He said the benefits of a de-sexing campaign would be obvious and there should be an intention to educate the public on the dangers of un-neutered crossbred dogs.

The council actively encourages the de-sexing of dogs through having a decreased registration fee of $33 for un-neutered dogs