Spaying and neutering under fire
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- May
- 19
How would you feel if your community required you to spay or neuter your pet by 4 or 6 months of age or else be fined? Would you still do it after hearing some pet health providers say that these types of surgeries at earlier ages may be leading to other health problems? That’s the debate raging in some communities across the country, according to a story on MSNBC.com.
Several veterinarians cited in the article say they oppose mandating spaying and neutering, which is required in place like Los Angeles, San Mateo and Belmont, Calif.; Palm Beach, Fla.; and North Las Vegas, Nev.
Some of the health problems that could result of earlier spaying and neutering include some thyroid cancers, aggression in male dogs and incontinence in female dogs.
We had our Lab Maggie spayed when she was about 6 months old. Now 10 1/2, she has experienced some incontinence problems, which our vet said is common in spayed older females. The vet said they could give her medication to help control the incontinence, but it occurs so infrequently that we prefer to take her out to the bathroom more often than medicate her, for now. As for Otis, we waited to neuter him until he was about 1 year old because we weren’t sure if we were going to show him. No aggression problems there—he’s a giant mush.
Did you spay/neuter your dog or cat? At what age? How would you feel about mandatory spaying/neutering?
Photo by Stuart Bayer/The Journal News
This entry was posted
on Monday, May 19th, 2008 at 12:20 pm by Tracey Princiotta.
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We adopted an already spayed cat from the local shelter. Recommending spaying/neutering our companion animals should be encouraged. Mandating spaying/neutering is more liberal nanny-statism that we can do without. Perhaps there should be mandatory spaying/neutering of politicians!
I neutered and spayed my dogs when they were between six and eight months of age. Spay/neuter offers an enormous amount of benefits, including reduced cancer rates.
If an animal is going to be shown or responsibly bred (and “responsible” is the key word here, folks) they should not be forced to spay/neuter. But when the shelters are choked with more animals then they know what to do with I don’t see a problem with a mandatory spay/neuter program, with limits of course.
As it is, many rescue organizations won’t let an animal go to a new home without being altered—good for them.