When stray dogs and cats roam free, it negatively affects everyone.

There are potential health problems and safety issues, and a neighborhood full of strays is much less attractive to potential buyers.

Those are just the problems for people.

The animals themselves are worse off when they don’t have people to take care of them.

Food and shelter, of course, are more difficult to come by, and many people’s answer to the problem is a gun.

Strays lucky enough to be taken to the humane society usually suffer a similar fate — but not because the staff at the society want it that way.

All too often, animals are euthanized because they have to be. There are simply too many animals brought by and not enough picked up.

The only solution is for people to start taking responsibility for the their pets by having them spayed or neutered, identified and confined.

It’s not the neighborhood’s responsibility to take care of your pet, regardless of how “harmless” they may be.

“Good” dogs bite people just like “bad” dogs do, and they hurt just the same.

At times, they are equally as dangerous and both run the risk of being struck by a car.

As the late Bob Barker used to say at the end of each episode of The Price is Right, “Help control the pet population. Have your pets spayed or neutered.”

That will go a long way but keeping your pets on a leash, in your home or in a fence is the most effective and safest thing for your neighborhood.