This article was printed in the star back in March, but I just came across it in my "Favorites" and I don't think we, (pet owners) can ever be reminded enough of the importance of spaying and neutering:

I have a special place to cry. I go there often. It is the back parking lot at Indianapolis Animal Care and Control. I rescue Great Danes and often help out with temperament evaluations for adoptability. I recently evaluated a 2-year-old beautiful brindle mastiff. She passed all the tests, no aggression, no snarling, and no reaction at all to stimuli. She was too sick to react. She was heartworm positive. She was a sweet girl who wanted only to spend her life lounging on someone's couch and to be loved. Heartworm preventative is only about $6 a month. Heartworm treatment is $600. Mastiff rescue cannot afford to help her, so her fate is that of so many wonderful companion dogs. She will die.

I've spent a lot of time in my personal "crying place" over the last seven years. I cried over Eve, a blind, deaf Great Dane puppy used as a dog-fighting "bait" dog. She was the perfect bait -- she couldn't see it or hear it coming. She was so swollen and bloody that I wasn't even sure she was a Great Dane.
Please, spay or neuter your pet. No animal deserves the fate so many of these pets face, and I am sick of sitting in my van and crying.
Joyce Crawley
Great Dane Rescue