Councilor urges spay and neuter of pets, recounts tale of euthanized kitten
Animals adopted from humane society open space for others and come already spayed or neutered and with shots
Dianne L. Stallings- Stop breeding animals and leaving them to die alone and neglected, councilor says
During a recent Ruidoso Village Council meeting, Councilor Tim Coughlin urged owners of all dogs and cats in the village and surrounding areas of Lincoln County to spay and neuter their animals.
He recounted the story of an ill and neglected kitten he found, who was euthanized, because of its unhealthy condition.
"Those of you who are friends with me on Facebook know that yesterday I found a little kitten in my driveway," he said. "It was curled up on a plastic bag. I backed up, but did not run over the kitten. It was still there and didn't move and I was concerned too. I got out and walked over and it stayed there. I picked it up.
"The long story short is the Humane Society (of Lincoln County) is just stuffed full of kittens and dogs and people are on Facebook asking (for homes), because they have extra kittens and dogs. This poor kitten ended up having to be euthanized. It had some medical issues."
"Stop breeding and get your animals spayed or neutered," Coughlin urged during the time on the agenda for councilor to talk to the public on issues. "If you get a free animal because you can't afford to pay the reasonable adoption rate at the humane society, then you can't afford to take care of that animal."
When adopting from the human society, not only does that create space for another animal to be saved, the one adopted comes with shots, many are completely socialzed and house trained, and they already are spayed or neutered, "so you don't have to worry about ove- population," he said.
"Anybody who is worried about these animals being put to death, basically, it's your fault if you are not taking care of your animals," Coughlin said. "Get a collar, a nametag with your phone number on it, because there are so many animals that are found and they don't have a phone number. They can't protect themselves, so we have to protect them. Please, please get out there and do the right thing by the animals that need us so desperately."