Spaying/Neutering pets

[Seshat]

Since the 'Male genital mutilation' thread got partially sidetracked, I figured I'd start a thread for the sidetrack to move to.

Opinions: spay/neuter? Don't? Why do it? Why not?

The floor is yours.....

[IDrinkaRum]

As I got both of my kitties from the pound, we had to get them neutered/spayed.

Actually, we weren't allowed to take possession of Kyra until she was neutered because she was 7 months old and not spayed already. Darwin was younger so we had to wait until he was 6 months old before we could get him fixed.

Even if we didn't have to get our pets spayed/neutered by rules of the county, I still would. I wasn't planning on breeding either cat, and I didn't want to deal with "surprise" babies. It's not fair to have an overabundance of animals running around which can't take care of themselves & have no homes to go to. But that's just my own opinion.

[AFPheonix]

Unless you're planning to breed top quality animals with an eye for improving the breed, for the love of god, spay and neuter.
Enough animals get made on accident that there won't ever be a shortage of pet quality creatures.
In the horse world, the market is so crappy we're not getting a whole lot for our horses, although I guess it's a testament to them that they're selling at all. But we're cutting way back on breeding and have sold several broodmares already and are getting 2 more back under saddle again to sell.

[Boozy]

Spaying and neutering is the right thing to do. Unless you plan on allowing your pets to breed, it's cruel to let them keep all the parts that will give them the overpowering urge to do so.

Besides, accidents can happen. Animals will go to great lengths to mate when the urge strikes them.

[Seshat]

I've volunteered at an animal shelter. (RSPCA, for those who want to know.) I've seen the results of unrestrained breeding of animals.


I strongly believe in animal contraception. I think we should only breed our companion animals if we're doing so to improve the species, and have buyers lined up already. Meat animals are somewhat different, but we still need to control the herd size and location.

And by 'doing so to improve the species', I mean checking bloodlines for bad recessives, selecting sire and dam based on health and temperament of not only them but their ancestors, having a vet involved in the process from before conception - the whole lot. It's expensive, but it saves a lot of suffering for the animals.

Even these puppies contribute to the excess of pets: if everyone who bought one of these carefully bred animals bought a former stray/surrender instead, we'd still be killing the excess shelter animals (or dooming them to a life in concrete).
But if we manage to prevent all our companion animals from breeding, we end up with only one generation of them. And if I have to choose which of them are bred, I'll go for the ones without patellar luxation or hip displaysia in their bloodlines.
(Both conditions are painful and/or crippling. I don't want that for my pets!)


So should the contraception be spaying/neutering? I don't know. I just know that I'd rather spay or neuter my pets than have them contribute to a pathetic pile of corpses in the morgue of an animal shelter.
If another option becomes available, I'll consult with my vet and determine the one I deem best for my pets. But until then, I'll spay/neuter.

[Dreamstalker]

Love your ideas, Seshat. So many people breed "because it's cool" (designer dogs, anyone?) and later discard the result if it's found to be less than perfect.

All of our cats/dogs have been either strays (one feral kitten who ended up dying young from an undiagnosed heart problem, but while she was with us she was the sweetest thing ever) or shelter animals. I'm all for spay/neuter.

McGriff's mother was found badly beaten and burned by the side of the road shortly before she gave birth There are some people who don't spay their cats, then go haywire when they do get pregnant.

[AFPheonix]

So should the contraception be spaying/neutering? I don't know. I just know that I'd rather spay or neuter my pets than have them contribute to a pathetic pile of corpses in the morgue of an animal shelter.
If another option becomes available, I'll consult with my vet and determine the one I deem best for my pets. But until then, I'll spay/neuter.

Even in the best breeding program, you end up with a few that aren't show quality. We breed paints, we get quite a few without spots, so although they can be shown in 4-H or open shows and futurities, they cannot compete with regular paints in breed shows. So, obviously, they're priced lower than a comparable animal with spots. People who can't afford a fancy show horse can afford a horse that's built just as nice with the all the talent the good show horses have as long as they don't mind having one that's plain bay or sorrel.
The same can happen with dogs and cats. Further, there's enough homeless dogs and cats mating that there will never be a shortage of pet quality animals. As long as responsible people do right by their pets and spay and neuter, there will at least be fewer animals needing to die because of our excesses.

We've only ever had one dog have a litter with our family, and that was because the vet couldn't determine whether she'd been spayed or not by her previous owner. Unfortunately, the neighbor's unfixed male figured out she was in heat before we did....so now we have Nestle. But, both mom and daughter are spayed and daughter has a home with us for life, no matter how many of my shoes she eats >.<

[Lace Neil Singer]

What you're saying about horses goes the same for guinea pigs. Reason why I know? When I worked in the pet centre, one of the regular suppliers of guinea pigs was on the show circuit. She bred selfs, harliquin (sp?) and rosetted guineas. Now, the show standards are exacting; selfs have to be entirely all one colour and have good points and confirmation; rosettes have to have a certain number of rosettes and harliquins have to have patches of equal size and the standard three colours. Any rejects were sold to the pet centre for pets. They were all really tame, and very well bred; yet, they were not show standard, so weren't kept for that. Therefore, breeding your pet guinea when there are loads of guineas, both mongrel and purebred, that require homes is pretty stupid. Buy a show reject, and keep it with guineas of the same sex so it can't breed.

[Flyndaran]

I also agree that castrations and hyster-ufoectomies are usually the right thing to do to one's pets.
I just have been having a mental block to get my little Smackers operated on. I'm pretty sure it stems from my own bad experience with a "routine" operation. It's how I found out that my family is almost immune to opiates and hecefore immune to the bulk of real pain meds.

[Seshat]

Even in the best breeding program, you end up with a few that aren't show quality.

And I'm looking into eventually getting one of those 'not show quality, not breeding quality' but otherwise healthy-with-healthy-ancestor pets for myself.

The ideal pet for me is one with a known temperament and known likely behaviour, because of my disabilities. A shelter pet's temperament isn't going to be as well known as that of a known-breed animal with parents and grandparents and great-grandparents chosen in part for temperament; and who was kept with his mother and observed carefully for eight or nine weeks.


So if we ever get past our financial hassles, I may well be picking up a Cav King Charles Spaniel, or Papillon, or Havanese. If I ever do, it'll be from a rescue for that breed, or a non-show, non-breeder quality 'extra' from a carefully bred litter. (Pugs also have the qualities I'm looking for, but I just can't get past their faces, dammit. I just don't like them.)


However, the pets we have now are all shelter pets, and I adore them and wouldn't swap them for any 'designer breed', no how, no way.


Note: while I generally look down on 'designer breed', some crosses have good reason and are as ancestry- and health-checked as I could want. And some 'show animals' are bred without properly checking ancestry and health.
What I'm after is breeding for health, with breeding for desirable traits (eg the temperament to be a good seeing-eye dog) coming second.
A seeing-eye dog society crossing healthy lines of low-allergen dogs with good seeing-eye dog lines and carefully developing a gene pool of low-allergen seeing-eye dogs is being responsible, IMO.
Someone crossing their poodle to their neighbour's labrador, without health checks or ancestry checks, just to make money selling 'labradoodles' is being irresponsible. IMO of course, and quite obviously many people disagree with me.

[Boozy]

My husband and I are very grateful that our pugs weren't considered "show" quality. They come from a long line of healthy, beautiful, award-winning dogs. My oldest has a scar on his foot from an accident as a puppy, and my youngest pup has a "high toe". Other than that, they're perfectly healthy in every way - and we never would have been able to afford them if they didn't have these imperfections.

[AdminAssistant]

Everyone talks about how friendly, beautiful, well-behaved, and gentle my dog back home is. We get asked all the time what breed he is. He's a mutt who showed up on our back porch when he was about 5 weeks old. (He was obviously dumped on our property by someone who must've known that we had dogs, but Dad was never able to find the owner.) I wouldn't trade him for any dumb lab with a gajillion different health complications that seem to be the rage back there.

[Lace Neil Singer]

My dog that I had when I was a kid was the result of a purebred Welsh collie crossed with a Heinz. She was really friendly, super intelligent and we all loved her to bits. And yep, she was spayed. The dog shelter where we got her said she was, but we had the vet check when she went for her jabs and checkup. Who needs pedigrees when you can have a Heinz collie? XD

[pile of monkeys]

Neuter and spay all the way. I'm actually taking my new pup to get spayed on Friday. She's 8 years old, surrendered to the pound for whatever reason (she's a complete sweetheart, been with us for a few weeks), and I'm so angry that she's been in at least two homes before here, and no one was responsible enough to have her spayed. The surgery has more potential complications at her age, but our vet as well as all the research I've done says it's still better to do it later rather than never. Unspayed females have a higher instance of various kinds of cancers, tumors, and a truly horrifying uterine condition, the name of which currently escapes me. Our male dog came to us neutered, but he would have been fixed if not.

I do my part to control pet overpopulation by taking in dogs that have no home- why would I contribute to the problem by having them unaltered? There are plenty of pets, purebred included, who need homes. Amateur and irresponsible breeding just compounds that problem.

[fireheart17]

And I'm looking into eventually getting one of those 'not show quality, not breeding quality' but otherwise healthy-with-healthy-ancestor pets for myself.

Both of our cats (now 4 and 5) were picked up from reputable breeders. Neither were show quality (one has heterochromia) but have very sweet and affectionate temperaments. One is a Russian Blue, the other is a Tonkinese. The Tonkinese breeder also bred Siamese and Burmese cats (Tonkinese is a cross between the two, a litter from a Tonk will produce one Siamese, one Burmese and two Tonks).

Of the Russian Blue breeder, while she gave us a sheet detailing the pedigrees of both the kittens we picked up from her (we had to laugh at the name she'd given our first cat, we renamed it) unfortunately, she was unaware that our first one had anaemia (the vet that she went do didn't pick it up either) and had to be put down (this was when he was about 3 due to the point where he wasn't able to control his bodily functions and kept soiling the couch) while our second one has FLUTD (Feline Lower Urinary Tract Disease) which while he has to take tablets twice a day to be able to urinate, he leads a very active life. First one lived alone, second one lives with the Tonk.

As for the Tonk, he has...attachment issues

Anyway, back on-topic. Yes, I would suggest getting any animals desexed unless you're a licensed and reputable breeder. All of ours were desexed as soon as they were old enough and all it takes is one night for males, up to a week for females (female cats require stitches, male cats don't ). Besides the obvious desexing to prevent unwanted litters, desexing also reduces aggressiveness, so at least everyone can get some sleep at night