We love cats

[Lannie]

Is there a veterinarian in the house? I have a question. I don't have a pet, so I have no real stake in the answer to this, but it bugs me.

I have always thought the way veterinarians neuter pets is inhumane. And it seems like overkill. It's unfair to the cat or dog that in return for getting lifetime food and support from the human, they have to give up their sexuality and can never enjoy the pleasure, the energy and afterglow of sex. If I were the pet, I wouldn't want that deal. I would want to stay wild even if it meant having a shorter life.

So why can't the animal be given a tubal ligation (female) or a vasectomy (male), so they don't have babies every year, but still can enjoy the sexy life? How would that be any more difficult or costly than surgically chopping the male or giving the female a complete hysterectomy?

Not a vet, but I have PLENTY of animals and have had all my life. The reason is behavior. When a cat or dog is in heat, they roam, they seek out a partner, they wail day and night (the cats do, anyway), and it's a big PITA. I suppose if you personally wanted to put up with it, you could request the vet do a partial spay or neuter if you ever get a dog or cat, but I think most people neuter and spay their animals to keep them calm and at home. There's also the issue of cancers, which I'm not totally convinced of yet, but the vets all say that hormones can cause testicle or prostate cancer in males and mammary and uterine cancer in females. I had a Pyrenees female one time that wasn't spayed and she ended up with a life-threatening and very expensive uterine infection. By the time I noticed something was wrong, it was quite advanced, and we had to rush her to emergency surgery. It would have cost a fraction of that if we'd just had her spayed normally at a younger age, but we didn't. So there's that, too.

I currently have a formerly feral momma cat in the house who isn't spayed. I'd LIKE to, but we've had a bad year with vet bills and lost two dogs over the summer and fall (one to old age and one to a freak medical condition), and we're just tapped out. But the mama cat goes into heat every few weeks or so, and she just paces and yowls 24/7 for a week, OMG, it drives me nuts. We already have 18 of her progeny in the house now, so I don't want any more damn cats, but honestly, she gets so loud, I'm really tempted to just let her out to go find a tom somewhere. But chances are, she'd end up hit by a car on the road, and when she's not yowling, she's a very sweet and loving cat, so I'd like to keep her.

Anyway, those are my opinions and experiences only. Your mileage may vary.

 

[Bliss Doubt]

Not a vet, but I have PLENTY of animals and have had all my life. The reason is behavior. When a cat or dog is in heat, they roam, they seek out a partner, they wail day and night (the cats do, anyway), and it's a big PITA. I suppose if you personally wanted to put up with it, you could request the vet do a partial spay or neuter if you ever get a dog or cat, but I think most people neuter and spay their animals to keep them calm and at home. There's also the issue of cancers, which I'm not totally convinced of yet, but the vets all say that hormones can cause testicle or prostate cancer in males and mammary and uterine cancer in females. I had a Pyrenees female one time that wasn't spayed and she ended up with a life-threatening and very expensive uterine infection. By the time I noticed something was wrong, it was quite advanced, and we had to rush her to emergency surgery. It would have cost a fraction of that if we'd just had her spayed normally at a younger age, but we didn't. So there's that, too.

I currently have a formerly feral momma cat in the house who isn't spayed. I'd LIKE to, but we've had a bad year with vet bills and lost two dogs over the summer and fall (one to old age and one to a freak medical condition), and we're just tapped out. But the mama cat goes into heat every few weeks or so, and she just paces and yowls 24/7 for a week, OMG, it drives me nuts. We already have 18 of her progeny in the house now, so I don't want any more damn cats, but honestly, she gets so loud, I'm really tempted to just let her out to go find a tom somewhere. But chances are, she'd end up hit by a car on the road, and when she's not yowling, she's a very sweet and loving cat, so I'd like to keep her.

Anyway, those are my opinions and experiences only. Your mileage may vary.

Thanks for the reply Lannie.

Growing up we had cats and dogs, but they lived outside, except for my poodle Valentine, the only one my dad would ever allow to live indoors. Anyway, having the pets stay outside, we weren't much mindful of their behavior.

This part, I'm very doubtful of:

There's also the issue of cancers, which I'm not totally convinced of yet, but the vets all say that hormones can cause testicle or prostate cancer in males and mammary and uterine cancer in females.

If that were true all of us humans would be getting cancer, and many do, but until we get the toxins and hormone benders out of the water, chemtrails out of the air, harmful chemical inputs out of our food crops, I'm hesitant to blame any normal biological process that has promoted us into huge populations over the eons. In fact, with the elementary school so called "trans-gender" or "gender care" movement, whereby they put little boys on puberty blockers, which block their normal hormone production, by the time they get to the castration part of the transaction, very often the little boy has testicular cancer from the hormone blockers, a medically acknowledged side effect.

Anyway, I didn't want to start a shitstorm. It was these barbaric child intervention programs that got me thinking about what we have always done to cats and dogs.

 

[snake94115]

There's also the issue of cancers, which I'm not totally convinced of yet, but the vets all say that hormones can cause testicle or prostate cancer in males and mammary and uterine cancer in females.

It is the truth Dr. Jeff Young has talked about this multiple times both publicly and on his show.

 

[Jimi]