So, there is an article linked off of Drudge about the proposed legislation requiring all pet cats and dogs to be spayed or neutered. Here is the article:

http://www.insidebayarea.com/ci_6218465?source=rss

My personal thoughts on the issue aside, I noticed a very flawed statistic offered by someone who is in favor of the bill:

“We kill a half-million animals every year and spend a quarter-billion dollars doing it,” said Sarah Eryavec, adoption supervisor at the Santa Cruz County SPCA shelter, referring to statewide estimates.

OK, so doing the math: $250,000,000 divided by 500,000 animals = $500 per animal.

Doesn’t that seem high? It sure does to me.

1. Euthanizing a cat costs about 85 cents (Source). Let’s say that a cat weighs about 10lbs. Let’s also say that, using proportional math, it would cost $8.50 to euthanize a 100lb dog. Hell, let’s round up– $10 per animal, regardless of weight or species.

2. Euthanizing a cat or a dog will consume about five minutes of a vet’s time or less, and five minutes of a veterinary assistant (see article linked above in point 1). Let’s say, just for easy math, that both earn a full veterinarian’s wage. The average veterinarian earns $39.18 per hour (Source). $39.18 per hour divided by 12 euthanizations per hour equals $3.27 cents. Multiply that by two for the veterinarian and the assistant, and we’re up to $6.54 per animal. Let’s round it up to $10 as well.

3. Cremating your pet will run about $143.75. I came to this figure by averaging the costs for all animals from kitten to 120+ lb dog as quoted on this page. Let’s round up to $150, even though that is likely for a private cremation, and non-owned pets would be just as cremated in a group cremation, which costs about half.

So, $10 plus $10 + $150 = $170.

How exactly is the State of California paying 194% more to euthanize and cremate a stray animal than than a super-high average cost to bulk euthanize and cremate a stray animal?

It just doesn’t add up.

That $250,000,000 figure seems more like it should be $85,000,000, and more likely around $45,000,000.

Yeah, morbid subject I know. But still, I hate bad math.