The Sex Life of Dogs

The controversy of the year swirls not around the conduct of the LAPD, the quality of the school district or the failure of public transportation in a city strangling on its clogged freeways. The controversy of the year, ladies and gentlemen, revolves around the sex life of dogs. Cats, too.

It is, as we like to say, the hot-button issue, drawing bigger crowds and louder participants than meetings on any other vital public concern.

You could fire the police chief, impeach the mayor and uncover satanic worship in the council chambers and only about 78 of the usual mixture of fanatics and journalists would show up at open sessions to discuss and report on them.

But come up with a plan that has anything to do with regulating animals and you’ve got old ladies screaming invective in the doorway of jammed meeting rooms and participants with opposing points of view struggling to reach each other’s throats.

What’s going on, for those who don’t follow animal activities, is a proposed ordinance intended to limit the number of stray dogs and cats in L.A.

It is based on the policy of Animal Services General Manager Dan Knapp, an ordained minister. He wants to cut down on the number of animals “euthanized”--which means killed--in the city each year. Last year 60,000 unwanted strays were “put to sleep,” another term meant to minimize the true impact of shutting them down.

It’s like the military use of “collateral damage” to indicate the, well, putting to sleep of innocent civilians in war.

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Knapp’s proposal would require all dog and cat owners to spay or neuter their animals before they--the animals, not the owners--are 5 months old. Owners who refuse will be charged a $100 annual fee for each unaltered animal. Also, those owners would be forced to pay another $200 for an annual breeding permit, even if they don’t breed animals.

That’s not all. Real breeders would be required to pay $200 for the breeding permit plus another $100 for each unaltered animal in their possession and $30 per animal for licenses, all of which hits them right in the wallet and sends them into the street, shouting and waving their fists.

There are about 45,000 stray dogs and 2 million stray cats in L.A. County. They tip over garbage cans, bite children, yowl at night, poo-poo on lawns and generally make damned pests of themselves.

When a stray is caught and goes unadopted for a while, he’s zapped. Knapp’s idea is to cut down on the numbers of strays and killings by making it tough on those who don’t unsex, so to speak, their pets. I’m not sure how the animals feel about this, but from my sexual perspective it beats dying.

Animal activists praise Knapp’s policy but the breeders hate it. They blame the mass killing of strays not on the number of animals on the streets but on the failure of the system to find them homes.

One of the animal activists, Michael Bell, says the breeders are part of the problem because a lot of purebreds become strays too. He estimates that at least 25% of all the dogs in L.A. animal shelters are, so to speak, from the finest families.

They too, if unadopted, get the needle. Background counts for nothing when the grim reaper calls.

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I realize that there are those among us who go a little crazy over animal rights. Like that nut in San Francisco who wants to ban the use of the term “pet owner” because it “objectifies” animals, whatever that means.

He prefers the term “pet guardian” and wants pets considered our equals. His equal maybe, not mine.

On the other hand, the idea of killing animals because we don’t know what to do with them is abhorrent. I find myself, shudder, on the side of the animal activists on this one.

Breeders make big money doing what they do, which is fine. If you’re willing to pay them a thousand bucks for a four-legged creature with a pedigree, that’s your indulgence.

Cat breeder Charles Ober insists it isn’t just the money. “If we felt we contributed to the problem and that a raised fee would solve it, I’d not be concerned about the money. But it won’t.”

He acknowledges that the issue is an emotional one and wants breeders and members of the “humane community” to work together. He warns that if they don’t and the ordinance passes, the increase the city wants is a tax, not a fee, and it’s unconstitutional without a vote of the people.

“They’ve got attorneys lined up and waiting,” animal activist Bell says nervously.

More public meetings are planned and then it goes to the City Council for final action. Meanwhile, the yapping and yowling will intensify. There may also be some biting and scratching involved. Better have a rabies unit standing by.

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Al Martinez’s column appears Sundays and Wednesdays. He can be reached online at al.martinez@latimes.com