No More Sexy Time for State's Cats & Dogs?

On Wednesday night, the state Assembly passed a bill requiring Californians, with a few exceptions, to have their dogs and cats spayed or neutered – or pay a $500 fine. As the bill moves on to the state Senate, people with pets have plenty to say about the pros and cons of spaying their pets.
The bill, proposed by Assemblyman Lloyd Levine, D-Van Nuys (Los Angeles County), would allow some breeders and owners of guide dogs and purebreds to get an exemption by paying a fee.
The bill poses serious problems for public safety and disaster preparedness, said Mark Herrick, a search-and-rescue dog handler with the California Rescue Dog Association and the Alameda County Sheriff's Search and Rescue K9 Unit. He noted that 95 percent of search dogs come from home and hobby breeders who won't be able to get an exemption.
“I think it is a bad move,” said Irma Barth, a 66-year-old bag lady in San Francisco’s Mission District who has two Chihuahuas. “My dogs should be able to get freaky with other mutts and enjoy the same kind of sexual freedom that I experience. My little one Mackie likes to hump cats. Why should that pleasure be taken from him? It’s not fair.”
Many people think that the bill will make it almost impossible to find good-quality, genetically sound working dogs. "If we don't have good dogs who can work eight to 10 hours a day to go through the rubble, how many lives will be lost?” Herrick said. “Only the puppy mills will be breeding dogs -- and they breed really inferior dogs."
He also added that canines that have been neutered lose interest in life and end up lying around the house; overeating and reading Dog Fancy magazine or watching reruns of The Dog Whisperer on cable. "If they're neutered, they just don't have the same zip and drive," he said. (I would say that’s probably true for everybody – human or beast.)
What will happen if this bill passes? Will we have more control over our pets and limit the numbers that end up at the Human Society? Or will we end up with a bunch of sexually frustrated, angry animals? Stay tuned.