Price Increases and Dumping

There's been a rash of price HIKES from the cat food companies - some companies increasing prices by as much as 30%!

As a result, there's been a huge increase as well in the dumping of cats. Whole litters of kittens thrown away in plastic bags outside homes of known cat lovers or rescuers...and these known cat lovers and rescuers are at their limit, so they themselves cannot help these "unwanted" babies And yet, people still say that neutering is inhumane and cruel...

Besides eduction, what else is there that we can to stop people from breeding unnecessarily? Any ideas?

I read this post earlier today and needed to think about what else could be done. It is so sad that people are irresponsible and don't get their animals spay/neutered. Educating people and low cost spay/neuter clinics are good avenues. The old saying goes "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink" some people just don't care. It makes my heart literally ache to see people who treat animals with such disregard.

I have four know strays by my house-there is a big dairy about a mile away and I'm guessing these are toms so a couple could come from there. There was a long hair cat resting behind my garden shed a couple of weeks ago but it ran down the hill and haven't seen it since. Another black/white cat whom I startled after this cat was in garage eating out of the food dished I keep there. One of the local humane societies has so many cats there are going to euthanize due to costs of feeding. I just gave money to local cat rescue I volunteer at. But every day there are cats to give away on freecycle.

Its a bad situtation with no end in sight. The freecycle cats are not fixed either which is perpetuating the situations. I don't know what really to do.

I just saw something on the news about the increase in abandoned cats since the economic downturn here in the States. This was from an upscale suburb not an economically deprived area. Unfortunately for a lot of people when finances start to get tight the pets are the first to suffer. This is an area where I am sure people still have their cable or satellite TV with all the premium channels and are still buying the premium cuts of meat for themselves. Some people simply shouldn't have pets but there really is nothing that can be done about people like that.

The only solution is an aggressive education campaign about spay and neutering including responsible pet ownership. More low cost advertised s/n clinics. Controlling feral colonies. The numbers have to be controlled.

When we were at the shelter visiting Grace before we bring her home.... I overheard the lady that runs it talking about this subject. Here in New England some people are of the mind that a cat MUST have one litter ..... then they fall in love with one cat from that litter and they must have a litter.

Why? they say the cat is mean if its never had a litter.

There is a topic for education.

I can explain some of the price increase in pet foods.

First of all, since most pet food comes from by-products of the meat industry, that supply has decreased, or is about to decrease. The high cost of cattle feed caused many raisers to reduce their herds. That drove the price of meat down, but it will rise again soon, if it hasn't already.

In addition, the grains and other products in the food has also gone up in price. Of course, transportation costs have risen by almost 1/3 in the last 2 years, and since pet food is relatively weight-intensive and low-profit, that affects the prices a lot.