Andy and Dougy got an early Christmas present when they were about five and a half months old: A trip to the veterinarian to be neutered.
Andy taking care of business…!
So, I left the boys at the veterinarian’s, and picked them up a bit later.
When I opened the carrier at home, I expected the boys to wobble out, wounded and stitched and wearing little Elizabethan collars. Instead, they bounded out, no collars or stitches, happy to be home and free. They ran all over the house, chasing each other, then taking well-deserved naps.
For the boys, neutering wasn’t a difficult time, and they showed no signs of discomfort.
Would I do this again? Of course. I believe in neutering or spaying one’s pets. It’s the humane thing to do, the smart thing to do.
We lived in an apt complex where people who had females and males who were not fixed. they were in heat all of the time and those poor little females were attacked by four and five makes at a time.
When they moved they just left the cats behind.
Finally the dog catcher came and picked them all up and we moved.
Here you are not allowed to have anything but kitties or small dogs and they must be companion animals. They must be said and neutered and inside pets.
I am a firm believer if someone can not afford to, or is not willing to, spay or neuter, they should don have pets.
I agree totally with you, Ruth! When I first moved here, there was a short-haired grey female that had at least two litters she raised in a bush by one of the units before the animal control officer finally caught her and the kittens. I don’t know if they were placed in homes or not, but I suspect they were too wild and were euthanized. The animal control officer told me that transients in a trailer court a few blocks over would get dogs or cats while here, and when they left town, they’d just desert the pets, leaving them to fend for themselves. The lucky ones found homes; the unlucky ones lived tough lives, got caught, and were euthanized. People who abandon pets should be thrown in prison with pederasts and murderers.
It is hands down the best thing to do. Besides keeping the unwanted cat/dog population down, it is better in the long run health wise and less stress without dealing with females going into heat and males fighting. So sorry you had such a horrible experience with your first kitty 🙁
Freckles was a wonderful little girl, and I have no regrets other than the shortness of her life. The main thing, for that short time she lived with me, she was a princess.
The boys always have it easy! For the girls it’s a little more of a procedure… but I’ve always had my cats fixed… I read that 70% of the cats in Los Angeles shelters are euthanized.
I had a little female who died the night after she was spayed. Though there was no physical issues discovered in the autopsy, I always felt that that part of her life she spent in a cage in a room at the shelter where she could hear dogs barking but couldn’t see them left her very stressed. When I got her, she purred instantly when I picked her up, and never stopped as long as I held her. She was a very sweet little kitty!
When she was spayed, she was held overnight in a cage at the veterinarian’s. There were dogs in the cages around her. I often thought she died of stress remembering her early weeks at the shelter, not the operation. She was a grey tabby I called Freckles, and I had her less than a month. She would be about six years old now, and she was my first cat. Her ashes were scattered around a memorial tree at the veterinarian clinic.
I am glad it went well for them. All 15 of ours are fixed and I always offer to help people get theirs fixed if I find out they are not yet. Please visit us for a giveaway.
A lady on my lane is like that, though she doesn’t have 15 cats. Her brother and sister-in-law, however, have a country home and 30+ cats in various stages of socialization and readiness for placement. I noted once that that would be one heck of a lot of litter box cleaning, and she noted her brother patrols the boxes all day, and cleans them as they are used or it wouldn’t be possible to breath in their home! No kidding!
Yes, when we brought George Bailey into the house (out of the pack of feral cats) we took him to be neutered. Funny thing happened. Apparently, neutering males under the age of 2 can cause their hips to crumble. I won’t tell you how much it cost to have surgery cost to make him able to walk again. He’s okay, but he doesn’t understand that being neutered would leave him unable to do things he thinks he still can.
I’d not heard that before. Maybe it affects those that reached sexual maturity before they were neutered. Mine were still a bit young, but within the age range recommended by their veterinarian for the procedure. (Instead of hip issues, mine had major health issues at first because they, as wee kittens, and their litter mates managed to catch a grasshopper that was infected with an amoebic parasite and eat it. In either your or my experience, however, we prove the axiom that there is no free cat! I got Andy and Dougy “for free”, even though they are pedigree cats with less than perfect breeder or showing qualities.)
Here is the link about what happened to George. https://theinquisitiveintrovert.wordpress.com/2013/09/06/our-georgie-cat/
No, there is no free cat, but IMHO, they give us back much more than we could have imagined.
What an incredible story. You are to be commended for following through for George. Many people would have had him euthanized at the point his medical needs were determined. I know, from experience, that my veterinarian is more than amendable to time payments, but my cats as kittens had expenses that were spread over several months. I was able, fortunately, to be able to pay as we went, never letting bills pile up beyond what I could comfortably pay at a time.
Thank you. We don’t have a lot of money. Never have had. But my feeling was that he chose me, he trusted me, he gave up his life (which ultimately probably saved his life if you are familiar with the statistics of the lifetime of feral cats) and he trusted me. I had to do the best I could for this creature who chose to live with us.
Later one he started having bladder problems, but that was resolved by a wet food only diet. He is my happy place.
I have no doubt that’s exactly what happened! Your kitty was fortunate you decided to give him a home, and I have no doubt you’ve been blessed many times over for your kindness!
I think it is a good idea, but I’m not sure what the boys thought of their “Christmas present !”
They didn’t have enough time to learn how usual the missing parts could be, so acted like nothing happened!
Even Coco is spayed. (Coco is female)
Good for you! (Coco, incidentally, is one of my favorite cats on the Internet! What a pretty girl!)
Thank you. And Coco is very pleased about it. 🙂
I love black kitties!
It’s the proper thing to do! Congrats to the boys for bounding out of it so successfully. Happy Love Your Pet Day! Woof!
I was impressed, to be sure! I think females require more recovery time because the operation is more invasive, but the boys barely noticed anything was wrong or different. 🙂
Thanks for spreading the word! Yes, neuter and spay your pet today!
The Cole and Marmalade video reminded me of it, and it is something I strongly support. One of the people who was the animal control officer here was a friend. She was good at her job, but eventually quit to become a jailer when that position opened up. I was surprised she did this since she loved animals so much. She said the part she had difficulty with was having to euthanize perfectly healthy animals because she wasn’t able to place them, and that, ultimately, was why she had to get out of the position she otherwise loved. I also support adopting shelter pets over buying them in pet stores.
It is always the clever thing to do. Males tend to mark their territory, not pleasant, not pleasant at all. And females have an even worse problem – they produce follicles and that bloats their ovaries, when they never get an ovulation. (Which in felines is occuring AFTER sex). So the older the cat gets, the more her ovary is stretched and may even tear. So it is way better to neuter the female!
I can’t imagine what fun it’d be to have two unneutered males in the house…!
You would have to buy new furniture like the couch far too often.
And how!
I had no idea about the problems in female cats!
In my old neighborhood, cats pretty much assured sleeping with one’s windows open in summertime was a noisy affair, no pun intended!
Haha xD
Neither had I until I heard it from somebody at the cat shelter from where I got my two. She had an elderly cat which she took in from an unreliable owner then and again – and that owner kept the cat indoors, so that cat would not get to business with a tom. But still the cat got in the heat – and when that cat was finally neutered, the vet said the skin of the ovaries was already so thin it could have torn by any movement like the cat jumping or so … THAT opened my eyes to this problem. Of course, I had a neutered cat before that, as it was just the right thing to do. But I did not know about the dangers for a cat that come from getting in the heat again and again – and not getting pregnant.
This was something new to me. I’ve had one female cat, but she died very young after being spayed. It’s good to know what you wrote about female cats, though, and I hope it helps others with females to do the right thing by their pets.
When 1984 our cat “arrived2 (quite literally” at our house she was heavy with kittens. And since her five little furballs were a dire warning, not to delay her spaying for too long, we had the mother spayed 6 weeks after the birth. She had been with a tom again, but those kittens to be got aborted (it was early on). After that the cat lived with us for 8 further years. No more kitten, but a lovely mouse-catcher!
Andy and Dougy’s mother was used for breeding, and was spayed after her second litter, the one my cats were in. I think that is what responsible cat breeders do – spay after two litters unless there are complications with the first one – but Andy and Dougy weren’t up to Persian cat standards fro breeding or showing. I hate to think what would have happened to them if I hadn’t agreed to take them! (Even though they aren’t perfect examples of their pedigree, they are lovely pets, and that’s all I expect out of them!)