Lied still taking a beating

I was browsing through the Channel 3 website, when I found a video of an interview of Natalee Nounna. She had a adopted a pit mix from Lied. At the time, she was told that it had been spayed and had all of her shots. She named the dog Miya and a few months after adopting her, Miya gave birth to puppies. This isn't the first time that a resident in Las Vegas has adopted an altered dog from the shelter to only find out later that it had not been spayed. Several years ago, it happened to me. I had adopted a female Akita from the now defunct Dewey shelter.

The reason things like this happen are simple. People who turn in dogs don't necessarily tell the truth. With a male dog, its pretty obvious if he's been neutered. With a female dog, its a lot harder because to be absolutely sure, surgery is involved. The vet would have to open her up and look inside. Most techs rely on a surgical scar to determine if a dog has been spayed. If the dog has had another surgery, its possible that the scar from that may be mistaken for a spay scar. Things like this are very rare to say the least, and should not happen again. Last year Clark county instituted a mandatory spay/neuter law for all personal pets. Owners with unaltered animals will need to be licensed by animal control and only pedigree animals will be allowed to remain unaltered. Owners that fail to comply will be heavily fined and their animals confiscated.

Hopefully this will help curb the overcrowding at Lied and prevent the euthanization of so many animals in the future.