re: universal neutering
I also agree this is probably the best answer to the problem.
As much as I love the Countdown jingle idea, and the browser toolbar addon is genius (although I would change that to DPS - dogs per second in deference to my lack of a life), the concept of spaying and neutering all dogs has many benefits.
The most obvious is that special class of twat, the amateur breeder, would be stopped dead in his tracks. You know, the kind of git that one day decides he can make a few grand by breeding his pedigree pitbull, only to end up with a litter of dead puppies, or due to his stupidity, a litter of diseased or otherwise damaged goods.
In Anchorage every dog owner must have a license. In order to get the license our dogs must be current on their rabies jabs, and until your dog can have the 3-year booster that means one year licenses.
As an incentive to spay and neuter, the cost of the license is reduced from excessive to acceptable.
With the mandatory idea you would go one step further and no longer issue licenses to anyone except registered and licensed breeders if the dog hasn't had the op.
To back that up the SPCA (our version of the RSPCA, obviously) offers $100 ops - about 50 quid. City-run shelters spay and neuter all animals before adoption, they even offer name and address implants for free.
Obviously it doesn't fix everything, obviously people break the law. .
But I reckon if it helps at all it's worth it. Otherwise we should probably all get the DPS plugin and have the Countdown jingle go off every time a particularly pathetic specimen meets it's ancestors.