FROM OUR READERS: Blame irresponsible pet owners, not the shelter

After reading Lynda Hansen’s response to your Sunday article about the Lied Animal Shelter, I feel a need to reply.

I agree that Lied has its faults and problems, but the real problem comes from irresponsible pet owners who do not spay and neuter. We have backyard breeders and pet stores that are allowed to continue to breed and sell their animals.

I would like to see Ms. Hansen spend just one, eight-hour day on a hot line for a local rescue group to hear all the reasons that people in Clark County find to surrender their so-called beloved pets. I am allergic, we are moving, the dog chewed my shoes, the cat pees in my house, we are having a baby, my purebred dog that I paid $1,000 for is sick and I have no money to take him to the vet.

I could go on and on, but there are at least 100 animals a day turned in to the shelter because of these lame reasons.

Do the math: It is impossible to save them all. There is no sanctuary that would be big enough and clean enough to house all the homeless animals. If you really want things to change and help make a difference, step up and start volunteering or help us to fight for stronger laws when it comes to the animals.

There are many animal lovers in Clark County, so Ms. Hansen shouldn’t feel like she is the minority. We are all out there struggling to make changes. Feel free to join in anytime.

Nancy Smith

LAS VEGAS

 

Breeding problem

To the editor:

Lynda Hansen’s Thursday letter calling for an animal sanctuary in Las Vegas exposes the exact mentality that caused the meltdown at the Lied Animal Shelter. What Las Vegas needs is not a sanctuary for unwanted animals, it needs fewer unwanted animals.

Last year, approximately 60,000 lost, abandoned and unwanted animals were dumped on the Lied shelter — and at the same time the Review-Journal classified section was filled with ads for puppies and kittens for sale. Statistics show that four out of every five of those cute little puppies and kittens that are sold through backyard breeders and the puppy mill pet stores will ultimately end up in the Lied shelter. As long as the uncontrolled breeding of these animals continues, we will never have enough room for all of them.

Building bigger shelters or building no-kill sanctuaries will not solve the problem. The only way to prevent the deaths of the tens of thousands of homeless animals that find themselves on the streets of Las Vegas is to prevent them from being born in the first place.

Ms. Hansen’s fantasy sanctuary would be quickly overrun with an endless flood of unwanted pets and a severe shortage of people willing to adopt them. Every year in this country, 3 million to 4 million healthy animals are euthanized due to the lack of people willing to adopt them — that is 405 animals an hour, or one every nine seconds. In human terms, this is proportional to losing the entire population of Los Angeles every year. And yet, we continue to allow our animals to breed.

Until we become a community of responsible pet owners, every year the tragic deaths of tens of thousands of healthy animals will continue to take place in our city. As long as people view their pets as disposable objects that can be tossed aside when they become inconvenient, the killing will continue. As long as amateur and backyard breeders keep pumping out litter after litter, the killing will continue. As long as people buy puppies and kittens from these breeders and pet shops, the killing will continue.

Responsible pet ownership and spay and neuter is the answer to this problem, not shelters and sanctuaries.

Bill Edwards

LAS VEGAS

 

All year

To the editor:

In response to your Monday editorial about year-round schools:

In my opinion the year-round school program is an enormous waste of money. I have seen first-hand that the classrooms sit empty during the time when one track is on break. In years past, yes, they did rotate classes in and out of these classrooms.

So many new schools have been added to Las Vegas that it doesn’t appear necessary to utilize the year-round concept.

Dorothy H. Mahoney

LAS VEGAS

 

Illegal benefits

To the editor:

Social Security Administration spokesman Mark Hinkle incorrectly stated current U.S. immigration law when he said, "We cannot and do not pay benefits to illegal workers" ("Illegal workers pay high share of unclaimed taxes," July 8 Review-Journal).

Between 1974 and 2003, the Social Security Administration issued more than 7 million "non-work" Social Security numbers, which entitled some foreign nationals — some of whom were illegal aliens — to services such as Medicaid and food stamps. The majority of those 7 million people worked anyway — despite the fact that their cards were explicitly stamped "Not Valid For Employment."

A loophole in the 2004 Social Security Protection Act allows members of this group who performed illegal work to receive benefits — by our estimates, a whopping $966 billion by 2040.

According to the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office, a substantial number of those cardholders are already eligible for benefits.

Since Social Security is a progressive system, low-income workers — many of whom are illegal workers — will receive substantially more benefits than they paid in. Especially because Social Security’s trustees expect the system to go bankrupt before today’s teenagers hit 50, we believe it should be preserved for those who played by the rules.

Shannon Benton

ALEXANDRIA, VA.

 

THE WRITER IS WITH THE SENIOR CITIZENS LEAGUE IN WASHINGTON, D.C.

Fighting rules

To the editor:

Wars are won or lost depending upon the rules of engagement.

In World War II, the United States used flamethrowers to burn the enemy out of caves and tunnels, fire-bombed Dresden into ashes and ultimately dropped two atomic bombs on Japan.

In the "war on terror," our troops cannot fire on mosques without approval or attack the enemy if they are attending funerals or are in areas where we don’t want to offend the local government. Iraq’s borders with Syria and Iran are wide open.

Who are the nameless and faceless bureaucrats and limp-wristed military leaders who have established the "rules of engagement" for the "war on terror"?

Let’s hear who these people are. They obviously are too busy sipping their lattes to notice that we are losing the war while we hold hands and sing "Kumbaya."

GERRY LOCK

LAS VEGAS