The last Tuesday in February is Spay Day USA, a great time to remember the importance of spaying and neutering our pets. Every year, United Animal Nations sponsors the Spay Day USA event in Sacramento, which has been the largest one-day spay/neuter event in the nation for nine years running. This year, volunteer vets and other animal advocates spayed and neutered more than 750 dogs and cats belonging to low-income residents. Wow!

Now, every year on Spay Day I hear these numbers, and every year they make my eyes pop (even more than they normally do!):

* In just seven years, one female cat, her mate and their offspring can produce 370,000 kittens. That number increase to 2 million in eight years and 11.5 million in nine years.

* In just six years, one female dog, her mate and their offspring can produce 67,000 puppies.

WOW! I'm SOOO glad my mom had me neutered! There is no way I could take care of that many puppies. And most communities can't either ... that's why so many dogs and cats are euthanized in our shelters every year. There just aren't enough people willing to adopt all of these homeless and unwanted animals, so we have to make sure there are less of them entering the shelters to begin with.

In case you needed more persuasion, here are some other good reasons to spay and neuter our furry friends:

* It eliminates annoying pacing and crying of female cats while they are in heat.

* For female dogs, spaying eliminates messy heat cycles. For both dogs and cats, it eliminates the attraction of persistent males.

* It usually stops male cats from “spraying” foul-smelling urine and reduces urine marking and the annoying and embarrassing urge to “mount” people’s legs in male dogs. (I would NEVER do that!)

* It reduces the tendency for animals to escape and roam in search of a mate.

* It reduces fighting among male animals.

* Neutered pets are less expensive to license.

* Spaying females greatly reduces the risk of mammary (breast) cancer and a life-threatening infection of the uterus called pyometra; and it completely eliminates the risk of uterine or ovarian cancer.

* Neutering males eliminates the risk of testicular cancer, and greatly reduces the risk of prostate infections, infectious diseases like feline AIDS (feline immunodeficiency virus, or FIV) and benign perianal tumors.