> This is a false dichotomy. The kind of people that stone a dog to death, will do gladly the same with a neutered dog. Is just a releasing frustration mechanis

> This is a false dichotomy. The kind of people that stone a dog to death, will do gladly the same with a neutered dog. Is just a releasing frustration mechanism. Hard disagree at least in my local context. You seem to harbor quite a strong conviction but uninformed of the situation here. That doesn't help much other than, as you said, 'it makes us feel better'. Its through adopting these population control measures have locals been able to strike a compromise between, for lack of a better terminology, anti-stray and pro-stray folks. That the strays are neutered and would not by themselves lead to an increase in their numbers have helped persuade residents to be kinder, though somewhat reluctantly. The number of dead puppies per year have gone down, so have calls to the municipal corporation to exterminate the strays. It may sound harsh, but I will readily take that concrete benefit rather than judgements and opinions from the internet. > Finding somebody lower in the social scale to pick on him/her, is psychologically comforting in a twisted sense. This is spot on. I am just thankful that these has gone down some. Funnily enough its not just dog lovers vs those who do not like dogs. There have been instances of setting pet dogs against the strays. So yeah we as people do gratuitously horrible things. The stray population here has a very different dynamics and replacement sources from Coyote population, so I dont think that example generalizes.