Shelter's surgical unit hits the road.

• Author: Taylor, Mike
• Position: Denver Dumb Friends League

This may not be news that dogs want to hear, even if it will make them happier companions in the long run: The Denver Dumb Friends League this month is launching the "Lulu Mobile," a surgical unit on wheels that will travel around the state spaying and neutering dogs and cats.

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The goal for the first year is 1,200 animals. Colorado businesses can help by providing parking-lot space for the 33-foot mobile clinic to set up shop.

I learned about these plans for the Lulu Mobile, named for a dog whose owners donated the vehicle, when I called the Dumb Friends League to ask how big a problem the area has with neglected or discarded dogs. What got me thinking about this were the charges against Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick stemming from a dog-fighting enterprise he pleaded guilty to bankrolling.

This was big national news, as well it should have been: unspeakable accounts of dogs maimed in fights, killed by electrocution or hanging, and 52 surviving dogs on Vick's property seized and taken to shelters before they almost certainly will be euthanized.

But animal (and especially dog) cruelty generates instant, forceful reaction from activists and the general population, precisely because it is so spectacularly ghastly and worthy of front-page coverage. What about the less sensational matter of neglect that ends with dogs being foisted on shelters like the Dumb Friends League?

Denver at times has been hailed as a mecca for dogs. Most notably, Denver ranked No. 1 in the country for "healthiest city for pets" in a study commissioned in 2001 by the Purina Pet Institute. Among other things, the consortium looked at cities' ratio of veterinarians to pets and accessibility to dog-friendly parks.

And yet any time I've gone to the Denver Dumb Friends League--I adopted my Australian Cattle Dog/Jack Russell mix there five years ago--I've found the shelter to be filled to capacity, or close to it, with dogs.

Indeed, the shelter took in 13,000 dogs last year; 2,300 were reunited with owners, and 6,900 were adopted. But I learned in talking to Linda Houlihan, community relations director for the shelter, that a lot of the animals you see there have been transferred from other areas.

"Truthfully, if we only took the dogs that we receive within Denver, our shelter wouldn't be very full," Houlihan said. "The nice thing is that because Denver is so pet-friendly, we will transfer dogs in from less populated areas or even from out of...