Save Our Strays: How We Can End Pet Overpopulation and Stop Killing Healthy Cats and Dogs [Paperback]

Bob Christiansen (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1884421490 | ISBN-13: 978-1884421495 | Publication Date: February 1999 | Edition: 1

"This book is a thorough compendium of information about why animals enter shelters and how to save their lives, based on the most extensive presentation of verified data that anyone has ever assembled." - Animal People

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Since 1989 "The Book" in the animal care and control field has been the National Animal Control Association Training Guide. Now there is another: Save Our Strays, by Bob Christiansen. You need both - and they don't overlap.

The NACA Training Guide explains just about everything that an effective animal care and control department chief needs to know about how-to. Surprisingly little of the advice is outdated. Save Our Strays is an equally useful and thoughtful compendium of information about why animals enter shelters and what to do about it. based on the most extensive presentation of verified data that anyone has ever assembled. Author Bob Christiansen doesn't settle for single sources, common suppositions, or anyone's sloganeering. Instead, Christiansen collects and abstracts the findings of hundreds of separate studies to present a comprehensive portrait of the evolution of cat and dog demographics in the U.S., with emphasis on how shelters influence the numbers. To understand what he offers is to take the guesswork out of designing a cat and dog population control program.

Christiansen covers the principals, for instance, that one should consider in drafting an application for some of the $200 million that the Duffield Family Foundation has committed to joint programs for achieving no-kill communities. Save Our Strays is not a handbook for getting the money but you can bet that successful applicants consider all the aspects that Christiansen reviews. Strategic planning is only one aspect of the utility of Save Our Strays. It can also be handy in responding to media requests for statistics, especially of a comparative nature, and in preparing humane education programs.

As a dog trainer, shelter board member, former shelter director, and consultant to management animal control agencies and humane societies, some in notoriously difficult regions. Christiansen knows the field. His analysis is based on experience as well as numbers." -- Animal People March 1999

About the Author

Bob Christiansen has dedicated his work to helping pets and owners achieve the human/animal bond. Bob owns a dog training school, served as a board member and executive director for a California shelter. He wrote and published 5 humane education books. He lectures and has appeared on radio and TV, spreading the humane education message He has sold more than 40,000 copies. His books are used by over 400 shelters and rescue groups to educate their communities. According to Bob, "Pets have people problems."

Product Details

• Paperback: 103 pages
• Publisher: Canine Learning Centers; 1 edition (February 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1884421490
• ISBN-13: 978-1884421495
• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 7.9 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,695,506 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, Informative Book!, January 25, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Save Our Strays: How We Can End Pet Overpopulation and Stop Killing Healthy Cats and Dogs (Paperback)

I bought this book after a heart breaking trip to the local pound. I was overwhelmed with how many adoptable, healthy animals there, who if not soon adopted, would be euthanized. I decided that I wanted to find out WHY there were so many unwanted animals and WHAT I could do to help. SAVE OUR STRAYS was exactly what I was looking for. If you are concerned about the current state of animal welfare, please buy this book.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beyond excellent - but bring your brain along!, February 2, 2002

By 

Amazon Stitcher "Stitch-a-holic" (MD USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Save Our Strays: How We Can End Pet Overpopulation and Stop Killing Healthy Cats and Dogs (Paperback)

This is an excellent, and concise, guide to learning the nature of pet overpopulation problems in your own community. Without trying to provide a "one-size-fits-all" solution, the author explains that you can gather facts and data, analyze them and find out what needs to be done to make a more humane community. This is not a book with cute stories or heart-tugging appeals. Instead, it is a book that will make you curious about your local animal laws, your shelters and rescue groups, and how many people decide to get a pet in any given year.

You might not know Bob Christiansen's name. His ideas aren't designed to make him famous. Instead, they are ideas that help YOU find ways to stop the killing. They will enlighten, surprise and intrigue you. And lastly, Save Our Strays doesn't try to point fingers or pit groups against one another. Christiansen asks us to look at facts about our own communities, and use those facts -- rather than feelings -- to identify where we need to begin.

If you love animals, you MUST own this book!

32 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Message to the author, February 20, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Save Our Strays: How We Can End Pet Overpopulation and Stop Killing Healthy Cats and Dogs (Paperback)

Dear Mr. Cristiansen,

In my conversation with Carol Monroe a week before the meeting, I was promised that I could speak for 5 or 6 minutes about what I believed to be the solution to the pet over population problem. I prepared a 6-minute presentation. Unfortunately Carol must not have told you of her promise to me and you cut my presentation time and I was unable to make my conclusion.

Proving yet again, Dr. Stultzberg's (of PETsMART) contention in her half page rebuke of Carol in the Arizona Republic.

The answer to the problem is: Put birth control additives in pet food.

It is very difficult to argue a point that is absolutely correct. An example: "Put fluoride in the drinking water to prevent cavities." I believe that you will have a difficult time finding many people today that are against this solution to tooth decay. Yet, when this solution was presented, it was fought vigorously by many large groups of people. Why? I have no idea. But many people had either fears or vested interests to contend with.

Let's look at the fears and vested interests in the birth control pet food issue. Fears: Giving my pet an additive might hurt it. This is "Big Brother" getting further into my life. This is stepping on my "Rights."

Vested interests: MCRAC: Started to protect citizens from the threat of rabies, expanded to protect citizens from roaming dogs, expanded to prevent animal abuse, expanded again to help with pet adoptions. Funded by the county and pet licensing. One avenue to more funding is proving to the county that there are more problems with dogs and cats that can be solved by this agency. Another is proving to the community a valid reason for licensing their pets.

Arizona Humane Society: If MCRAC did its job, there would be no need for this agency. In many areas the Humane Society and the County Animal control agencies are combined. Funded by donations and fees. Strong tie to the community with continuing distress calls and public viewing of animal cruelty reports. Sixty cats rescued, fifty-five euthanized the next day. High profile, big budget, "cash" business, with over 1 million dollars in cash assets.

Pet food manufactures: Fewer pets' means lower pet food sales. Investors want more profit, not less profit. How can they approach their Board of Directors with, "Hey I've got a great idea, we can introduce birth control additives and reduce the sales of our pet food by 10% a year for the next 10 years?"

1. Many people will resist birth control additives simply because it is a change.

2. 84% of people adopt puppies or kittens and let older dogs and cats die. Caused by the availability of puppies and kittens. Think about it. Bring a child to a Shelter where there are 8 darling little puppies, and 3 older dogs. The child will be attracted to the small helpless puppy, with that "smell" and nuzzling. The child falls in love with the puppy and the older dogs get left. Remove the never-ending supply of puppies and more "older" dogs will get adopted. PETsMART has proven this.

3. Nobody wants to pay more taxes! Tax non-birth control pet food 25%. This tax will give the manufactures the incentive to produce this product. Manufactures will see that if they introduce a birth control pet food that does not have this 25% tax, they will sell more pet food now and have an advantage over their competition that is not producing birth control pet food. Even though the long-term effect will be lower food sales, the short-term gains will drive them to produce this product. Net effect, little or no tax and over all cost of prevention set at pennies per day.

4. Birth control has proven to be safe in the human species. The major concern with birth control has been the possible side effects from long term usage. The human species has shown no long-term effect and the human outlives the dog and cat by a factor of seven.

5. Feral cats. It has been reported that the size of the feral cat population is approximately 40% of the domestic cat population and 25% of feral cats get their food from humans providing them with pet food. If the less expensive, birth control pet food was made available, people buying food for feral cats would help control the feral cat population. Agencies wanting to reduce the feral cat population could just simply feed them.

6. Breeders. Those who wish to breed pets can go to the MCRAC and buy a breeder's license, this license allows breeders to buy non-birth control pet food. The breeder still has to pay the additional tax as an incentive to go back to birth control pet food.

7. Veterinary services. Billions of dollars are spent each year preventing unwanted births and these efforts should continue, but the even this amount of effort is not solving the problem. Everyone agrees that there are too many unwanted births. Birth control pet food is an even more cost-effective method of solving the unwanted birth problem.

8. Identifying the problem. Tons of time and effort is spent on quantifying the exact problem, how many dogs, how many cats, how many feral cats, how many unwanted pregnancies and so on.

The reality is one unwanted birth is too many.

We don't want to kill dogs and cats, so we remove the reproductive system of many of them, let the rest breed and wait a few years and then kill them, excuse me, "euthanize" them and we call ourselves "Humane."

Birth control pet food is a humane way of lowering pet overpopulation. It should be our first line of defense. We inject a vaccine into dogs to prevent rabies. We do invasive surgery to sterilize animals to prevent births. If we could find a vaccine to inject to prevent births we would use it. We have an oral vaccine to prevent births it's called birth control pet food.

Who can make this happen? Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Why? He's the only one with the power to get past the fears and vested interests of "status quo."

Thank you for your time,

Harold Clements