Become a Patron!

We love cats

Lannie

Silver Contributor
Member For 5 Years
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

Platinum Contributor
Member For 5 Years
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

Diamond Contributor
Member For 4 Years
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

Diamond Contributor
Member For 5 Years
No photo description available.
 

joeyboy

Gold Contributor
Member For 5 Years
I had 19 house cats. A severe case of URI hit my house, which has never occurred. One my kitties we saved died from it. I was syringe feeding water to her but it became too difficult. We took her to the vet. They were trying to get blood and her heart stopped. It was very hard. We had her almost two years and she was really starting to bond with me, follow me around and almost lay with me. It took her a long time.

Edit: She may have been 6-years old.

Mimi will be missed.
IMG_20241213_194426.jpg
 

Lannie

Silver Contributor
Member For 5 Years
I'm so so sorry to hear you lost Mimi. She was beautiful.

We also have 19 cats in the house, and a chronic rhinovirus situation. Almost everyone has some degree of sneezies or cough. Maybe a couple are mostly clear now. Usually that stuff doesn't hurt the older cats so much, it's the kittens that succumb. We lost a lot of kittens (this was a feral colony living in our garage) to it, but if we could get to them in time and nurse them through the worst of it, they survived.
 

joeyboy

Gold Contributor
Member For 5 Years
Silky, who was a feral I fed for years and named was starving to death due to stomatitis. He came to me for help. He is one of the last ones, hopefully, to get it. He stopped eating. I syringe fed with baby food chicken and this high calorie gel for cats. Today, he started eating on his own. My wife won't do anything like that, especially to him, but he was so weak he just laid there. He also is toothless so he can't bite you.

This is him after his shave, regrowth and weight gain.

IMG_20241216_083045.jpg
 

joeyboy

Gold Contributor
Member For 5 Years
I'm so so sorry to hear you lost Mimi. She was beautiful.

We also have 19 cats in the house, and a chronic rhinovirus situation. Almost everyone has some degree of sneezies or cough. Maybe a couple are mostly clear now. Usually that stuff doesn't hurt the older cats so much, it's the kittens that succumb. We lost a lot of kittens (this was a feral colony living in our garage) to it, but if we could get to them in time and nurse them through the worst of it, they survived.
How long did it take to get clear? Some just seem to drag on, here.
 

Lannie

Silver Contributor
Member For 5 Years
Nobody's completely clear, except the two cats that were adults when the sick kittens started coming in. The adults never really got badly sick, they just had some sniffles and a cough for a while, then they were OK. The feral "kittens" are anywhere from one year old to 4 or 5 now I guess, and they all have something going on, even if it's mild. There are a couple that don't sneeze much, and when they do, it's just a little spray, not big snot-gurgles like the others. And then there are 2 or 3 that have really bad coughs, but otherwise, they're OK. Most of them just have major sneezies. Everyone feels fine, most of the time, but once in a while we have a relapse. Just this morning, one of our little boys, Snuggle, started walking drunk, so obviously he's got an ear infection brewing from his chronic sinus problems. We've had these before, it's not the first time. Usually a week of Clavamox will clear up the ear thing, but the vets are all closed and gone for the weekend and Christmas, so I hope it's not too serious. I don't think the rhinovirus is something that will ever actually go away, because they got it when they were so young, but the symptoms do tend to lessen as the years go by. You just have to learn to live with it.
 

Lannie

Silver Contributor
Member For 5 Years
Ugg, clavamox. We use orbax on everything. The one time we tried clavamox the poor cat gagged and drooled everywhere.

We haven't had that problem, luckily. All the cats we've given it to tolerate it just fine. I did finally get hold of the local (ha!) vet - they weren't answering their phone this morning, but I kept trying and finally someone answered. Anyway, she suggested a couple CCs of penicillin to hold him, and Rich is on his way over there now to pick up some Clavamox. So Snuggle has had his shot and I'll start the oral meds tomorrow. I hope he perks up fast, I hate seeing them so down and listless like this.
 

Lannie

Silver Contributor
Member For 5 Years
I don't seem to have a picture of Snuggle where he's not sound asleep. At least you can see his sweet face in this one. He's the tabby sleeping on the gray kitty's butt. The gray one, Goose, just had to have some rotten teeth pulled (and he's only 3 years old), so he's been through the wringer lately, too, but he's feeling much better now. And the snot covered blanket tells you how many of them still sneeze.

04-10-24 Goose and Snuggle.JPG
 

VU Sponsors

Top