READY ROOMMATES; NEW PROGRAM TO SPAY OR NEUTER BEFORE ADOPTION.

Byline: Angela M. Lemire Staff Writer

Responding to a rising population of dogs and cats and more frequent euthanizations at animal shelters, the county has a new pet project that aims to increase adoptions and reduce the population of homeless animals.

The Save-Adopt-Vaccinate-Educate program would require all impounded dogs and cats to be spayed or neutered at Los Angeles County's expense before being released for adoption, rather than require new pet owners to shoulder those responsibilities and related costs.

Bob Ballenger, spokesman for the county Department of Animal Care and Control, said the policy change - to be funded largely through donations from nonprofit groups and cities - is meant to control the countywide pet population and encourage more people to adopt animals from shelters.

The first goal is to reduce adoption costs that currently range from $40 to $100, depending on the dog's or cat's age, gender and medical needs, to a blanket rate of $30. County animal shelters also would eliminate a previous policy of charging a $40 deposit to adoptive pet owners, that could be recouped once the new dog or cat was spayed or neutered.

Animal care officials are seeking financial contributions from cities to raise $400,000 - the cost to run SAVE for at least one year - and sustain it for future years. To entice cities to contribute $500 to $5,000 toward SAVE, the county is offering to extend its waivers for spay and neuter adoption fees to residents within those communities that donate.

The county so far has received support from the nonprofit Animal Care Foundation, which has pledged $100,000 toward the program.

The long-term goal is to greatly reduce the number of abandoned or stray pets from the streets, by ensuring that all animals placed in new homes will not produce offspring, Ballenger said. Exceptions would be extended to animals that are aged or ill.

``There are more pets out there than owners,'' Ballenger said. He later added, ``The county doesn't want to add to the problem that's already out there. What we can do is make it easier to place the animals in homes, and hope that our efforts to control the population will pan out in the long term.''

Surging pet populations was one of the greatest contributing factors to a steady five-year increase in the number of abandoned pets that brought more than 100,000 stray and unwanted animals to county shelters in the 1998-99 fiscal year, according to Ballenger.

The Castaic Animal Shelter, built in 1972 to serve the Santa Clarita Valley, sometimes receives entire litters of kittens and puppies - sometimes weekly, shelter supervisor Lt. Terry Eversull said.

``Puppies usually are a little easier to adopt, but sometimes we get too many and it's even difficult to adopt them,'' Eversull said.

Castaic has 48 dog runs that can handle up to three dogs per unit. At its busiest times, the shelter intake has swelled to two dogs per run, he said.

The local problem has increased in step with residential development throughout the Santa Clarita Valley, he said.

The Castaic Shelter experienced a 22 percent growth rate in the number of dogs sheltered from 1994 to 1998, with 3,490 dogs impounded last year. The shelter was most crowded during 1997-98 year with 3,612 dogs. Cat populations, which generally have equaled a third of the dog population, also have increased.

By comparison, the Lancaster Animal Shelter in Antelope Valley impounded 11,064 dogs in the 1998-99 year, but placed 2,541, roughly 23 percent, of those dogs.

The most severe overcrowding problems, lowest adoption rates and highest number of animals put to sleep are seen in inner city areas, such as South Central Los Angeles, Ballenger said.

The Castaic shelter had one of the county's highest adoption rates in the fiscal year that ended in June, with 49 percent of all impounded dogs placed in new homes, said Ballenger.

Although well above the national average of 33 percent, Ballenger said there's room for improvement. Fifty-one percent of those animals were destroyed.

Ballenger noted that nearly 3,000 of the 8,523 dogs destroyed at the Lancaster shelter were old or sickly. Many pet owners in the Antelope Valley bring their dogs and cats to the Lancaster shelter to be euthanized, instead of to a veterinarian, because it is far less expensive.

``Ideally, we don't want to have to put any animals to sleep, but realistically, we're hoping that a program like SAVE will help us increase our adoption rate at a shelter like Castaic from 49 to 60 percent in the next year, and even higher years later,'' Ballenger said.

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2 Photos

Photo: (1 -- Color in SAC only) A worker at Castaic Animal Shelter cleans out kennels. A new program would spay or neuter animals before they are adopted.

(2 -- Color in SAC only) Eva Montes plays with puppies at the Castaic Animal Shelter.

Shaun Dyer/Special to the Daily News