Simone Espinet, member of the Ark, introducing three-year-old Daniel Best to one of the puppies ready for adoption.
Simone Espinet, a member of the Ark Animal Welfare Society Shelter, wants persons to remember the importance of spaying and neutering their dogs.
Her comment came during an interview with The Barbados Advocate at yesterday’s “Dog Lives Matter” event, which was held in Carter’s car park, Wildey, yesterday morning.
“We stress a lot on spaying and neutering, and the reason is because male dogs can pick up on a female in heat from a long distance away and he will do anything short of hanging himself just to get out of the environment to get to that female. As a result they just go to that female and spend like a week or two in their environment,” she said.
“In that scenario, you run the risk of losing your dog. They may not be used to traffic and get hit. He could be poisoned because people see some strange dog hanging around in their yard following their female dog. The dog runs a lot of risks from wandering so far from home; they can’t find their way home and they get picked up off the street and get adopted. If we fix that urge to leave, then that risk goes down to zero, which inevitably keeps your dogs safe.”
Espinet noted that it was important to fix your female dogs as well, so that you keep unwanted dogs out of the yard. In addition to that, she noted it reduces the awkward situation of having unwanted puppies and donating them to an animal
shelter.
“Veterinarians also noted that spaying and neutering reduces and prevents the dogs from contracting urinary infections and other cancers, and so on, because every season they come into heat and if they’re not breeding then it affects their cycle, metabolism and a lot of other things,” she said.
In this regard, in addition to keeping the dog population under control, Espinet stressed that spaying and neutering your dogs, also protected their health.