Stray animals: their impact on a community

The statistical import of the study not-withstanding, we found the most serious problem to be the lack of understanding of the pet population crisis and compassion toward animals on the part of pet owners, as evident in the pet columns of the classified ads. Our study leads us to believe that pet owners are allowing the reproduction of kittens and puppies in such numbers that they often have no cash value and, in fact, the owners will spend money, in the form of advertising, to facilitate their disposal. The street observations indicated that relatively few animals (lessthan 1%) actually are allowed to run free. Dog bites occur at a ratio of 1:20 for the dog population. In the area under study, free roaming dogs and cats present a mild to moderate problem, originating from a small percentage of pet owners. Only a small amount of pet animal suffering occurs by death from environmental hazards (ie, automobiles), and there is just a moderate amount of intentional killing of nondersirable pet animals. We fell the method used in this study and the results obtained from it have importance elsewhere. It should be coupled with a broader based survey questionnaire to better establish the ratio of pet ownership to the general population and the reasons and benefits of pet ownership. We could then have the "facts" about the pet overpopulation problem, as well as better understand the community values toward pet animals. A complete report with additional accompanying tables is available from the senior author at Rural Route One, Urbana, Illinois 61801.