Word: petted
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...village of Sher Mohammed Pet, on a main thoroughfare leading into the coastal districts of Andhra Pradesh, all traffic must come to a halt these days. A handmade green-and-yellow flag flutters over the makeshift roadblock as youths wearing badges demanding statehood for Andhra step out to tax the traveler: "Hey, you pay two rupees for Andhra." The traveler pays or he does not pass. Shouts of "Jai Andhra! Jai Andhra!" (Hail Andhra) go up as he is waved...
Just to feed U.S. cats and dogs costs their owners some $1.35 billion a year, say the authors. So much pet food is consumed (6 billion Ibs. a year) that horsemeat supplies are running short. Private and public shelters destroy about 13.3 million dogs and cats a year -at a cost of almost $100 million. In addition, at least $50 million is spent yearly to control rabies and other pet-related health problems...
Clearly a decrease in America's pet population is called for, conclude Djerassi et al. But how to achieve it? The death rate is already astonishingly high in the U.S.-12% of all pets are put to death each year in private and public pounds. (By contrast, the British, who have, proportionately, about the same number of pets as Americans, destroy only 1.6% of their dogs and cats in such shelters.) Logically, the final solution is a lowering of the birth rate. This can be done in a surprising number of ways, including ovariohysterectomies, vasectomies and various...
...Many pet owners, however, are unwilling to interfere with their pets' sex lives, either because of the cost or because of what the authors call "psychological needs." They speculate that "many people regard their pets as family members and are horrified at the concept of 'taking sex away.' Some male owners may want their pets roaming and impregnating as an unconscious protest against the sexual restrictions society and morality impose on them...
...spite of such psychological hangups, there is an answer: sexless pets. While no experiments have yet been conducted with dogs and cats, the authors report that rats have been made asexual by testosterone and estrogen injections at birth. Sexless dogs and cats may be next. Pet owners can only hope that the new little sexless creatures will be warm and furry and loyal...