Blind Shiri, tsk

Kitties! But puppies rule too. And hamsters. And mice. And rats. And all animals. Animals rule.

Blind? Pff, right. And yeah, hamsters/guinea pigs (SO STUPID but SO CUTE)/other fwuffy aminals are all great too, but puppies are still the best.

Rats. There are no better pets than rats.

But failing that, cats.

Hamsters and rats etc are not stupid! They're in fact highly intelligent.

No, no. It's guinea pigs that are stupid.

Not necessarily.

You can say I'm slightly close-minded regarding neutering animals. I believe that a race's iherent instincts including the right for the preservation of the species (reproduction), should be respected... at the very least with animals that are controllable such as dogs, so completely removing this capacity to reproduce imo is a nono (rabbits on the other hand, they could be viable for neutering thanks to their insane capacity to reproduce- which can be troublesome and quickly go out of hand). My dogs for example, haven't been neutered and they haven't engaged on any process of reproduction... still he can do so. But, if I ever seek mates for them, or such, I'd do so with the idea in mind of agreeing with the mate's owner to find a home for any offsprings.

Still, though, I agree... at least what I understand from what you posted. There are many mistreated animals out there, and some folks simply don't pay attention to their pets, including their reproduction. So what do you get? Mistreated animals multiplying by the dozen. Sometimes I wish people who are careless with a life such as a pet, whom they domesticated and often times chose to have... to simply be fined and sent to jail.

On the other hand, dogs reign supreme! We are just missing 6(+1) votes to demonstrate this!

Yeah, we've soundly defeated their arguments, but they'd already placed their votes before they could change their minds. *nod me*

I hate to sound like I'm trivializing this, because there's a lot of truth behind it, but... we gave that up when we domesticated them. The other 99.999% of their lives don't follow the patterns of their wild forebears, I can't see using that one last thing remaining "wild" (not really, as they've been bred domesticated for more than five thousand years and their mating is nearly as man-made as the food we feed them) to justify letting another thousand puppies and another thousand kittens starve to death tomorrow.

I'm going to put the nail in the coffin here:

Your cats gave this guy distemper:


And this guy cancer:


And they stole this guy's food:


What if these were your kids? Curb the local cat population today.

When was the last time you saw a dog do this?

Kitties!

Puppies are loud and messy.

Considering that lion was holding that thing hostage and starving it and even then it was eventually eaten by another lion, and they aren't even housecats and therefor pretty irrelevant, you're a fool.

Imo, to even think that an animal who has been domesticated has been stripped of their insticts and the most fundamental ones is a heinous. Clearly now, when an animal is domesticated, it simply means that it is adaptable or suitable with human life, but their instict always remain intact. The only difference with such animals is the constant human interaction, and that we humans often "operate" those animals to suit a purpose. If you have witnessed street dogs, that is CLEAR example of dogs reverting to their more feral stages, thanks to the abscence of human interaction. A clear example of how a "domesticated" animals has the inherent capacity of try to survive by it's own and that their insticts are never dead. In fact, one of the reasons dogs have been of such value for mankind has been not only their perfect capability to be conditioned to perform a certain tasks, but because their insticts. In fact, some of this domesticated animals live in an entourage where their insticts do keep them alive and show the animals worth.

Also, the only dog that surely is bred man-made is the bulldog, other races are merely "chaperoned". In a different entourage, where man's interactions isn't so evident, dogs would be breeding themselves and by themselves preserve their species. Another reason man breeds dogs is because it is profitable depending on the race and if you try to stablisha purebred lineage. Have you ever witnessed a dog give birth? The mother's instict to safeguard their children triggers in like LIGHTNING. Take notice of some of the fundamental insticts of all species, which in all are the rights of every species: feed, drink, sleep, reproduction, territory.

This is applicable to every living organism, every species under man's tutelage or not.
Just because a dog has been living among man for thousand of years doesn't make the dog any less of a species. What led to this domestication was mutual benefit, nothing more. Or else dogs would still be as wild as wolves/coyotes/dingos/jackals.

You may as well consider proper to neuter a dog, if you live in an entourage where you can't control your dog very well. Or neutering an animal by that matter where you cannot cope with the responsibility of them giving offspring. This doesn't remove the fact that a species will ALWAYS have the right to preserve it's species, even from the dumbest of animals to the most intelligent (not necessarily humans), at one point of another. This is because their insticts are deep within them, do you consider them to be less just because they've been domesticated? Not so. Most domesticated animals were already functional without us they can still be.

In conclusion, I believe neutering should be as a last resort. A resort to which one would turn to in an environment where you can't at all control the animal under your care.

To all of you interested on reading a good book that portrays an organism struggle for adaptation, please read: "Call of the Wild"

By the way... I can't believe kitties took the lead and kept it.

Cats are intelligent. Then what are dogs? Genius.

That's not what I said, and none of this is really relevant to the argument. If you can find the bit in all that you said that justifies causing thousands of animals to starve to death today, please highlight it. It's hard to see it in the middle of all that other stuff.

Well. What I meant in all my rant is: if you can perfectly control your animal so they don't generate inecessary offspring, no need to neuter them.

Neutering should only be an option as a last resort, if your animal is completely out of control.

Starving animals on the streets equals to an irresponsible "owner" who should be punished, and be banned from having the life of another being under their responsibility ever again. If your animal isn't one of those street animals, allow him to keep a happy and full life with the capacity of reproduction. Whether you actually let him reproduce or not, it's another deal.

Someone want to explain to me what is so great about cats? They are not playful at all. They are usually bony, and when you pet them its like youare petting a bone with hair.

How is letting it feed from its mother considered starving it?

Wait, so you don't want them neutered to preserve their sacred instincts, but then you don't let them out of the house? I think I should probably let this hijack go at this point; I think I've said all as can be fruitfully said.