The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has approval a new measure that requires all adult dogs kept in unincorporated Los Angeles County to be spayed or neutered and implanted with an identifying microchip.

“This measure, one of the first of its kind in the nation, will have double benefits,” said Marcia Mayeda , director of the Los Angeles County Department of Animal Care and Control, which drafted the ordinance.

“Its mandatory spay and neuter provisions, which are required of all dogs over the age of four months, will help reduce the numbers of unwanted animals flooding into our shelters,” said Mayeda (who, along with husband Vince, recently adopted Pablo [formerly Sebastian] from GPASC Rescue). “The Found Animal Foundation of Los Angeles has promised to pay for the microchip and lifetime registration for 1,000,000 dogs in Los Angeles County. We are truly grateful for their generous offer of support.”

“The microchip provision will provide positive, reliable on-body identification for dogs, speeding their return to owners.”

During 2004-05, the County’s Department of Animal Care and Control, the largest public animal control agency in the nation, impounded more than 40,000 dogs.

More than 24,000 of those animals were unsterilized, stray dogs, found running at large and raising public safety concerns by their behavior.

Once housed in County shelters almost 19,000 dogs had to be humanely euthanized because the agency could not find their owners or was unable to place them in new homes.

“Our agency is very much in agreement with the `No Kill’ animal care philosophy that is gaining wider and wider acceptance in the general public,” Mayeda said.

“And, at the same time, we understand the practical realities of animal control; our agency has been doing this for almost 70 years. In order to euthanize fewer animals – with the goal of euthanizing no animals – we first have to drastically reduce the number of animals coming into our shelters.”

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