Why Spay and Neuter?

Spaying refers to sterilizing a female cat (or any animal) by removing the ovaries, whereas neutering is the removal of the testicles in male cats (and other animals). This essentially means that your cat will not be able to mate and have kittens. Female cats typically reach sexual maturity at six months of age, and males at 7-8 months. Both genders are mature enough for the sterilisation, or birth control surgery at six months of age (this is done at a much earlier age abroad, but in India, it is typically done at six months for both male and female cats and dogs).

The surgery is performed under general anaesthesia. It is advisable to get the cat examined by the veterinarian first, to make sure it's healthy enough to undergo the surgery. Please follow the instructions of the vet carefully, and keep your pet empty stomach for 8 hours prior to the surgery. The procedure for female cats is a bit more complicated as compared to male cats, and the recovery period post operation ranges from 3 days to a week. This is a one-time surgery!

Here are the top reasons to spay/neuter your pets:

Behavioural Benefits

Female cats usually go into heat three to seven days (maybe more) every few weeks during breeding season. Her hormones will rule her body, and in an effort to attract a mate, she may yowl and cry and urinate around the house. While the cat is not in pain, she would be in distress as her hormones are driving her to do something that she actually can't. Male cats can smell and hear a female in heat and will make multiple rounds of your house, urinate to mark their territory, creating more chaos. Some females may find creative ways to escape from home to find a mate, landing in potentially dangerous situations.

Male cats, once sexually mature, will try to roam away from home to find a mate, get into fights with other male cats, risking serious injuries. Males also get unruly and difficult to manage when ruled by their hormones, and will spray (urinate) to mark their territory. Neutering also addresses certain aggression issues in pets.

Health Benefits 

(Source: http://cattime.com/cat-facts/health/386-spay-neuter-health-benefits-to-your-cat)

• Your female cat is less likely to develop mammary gland tumours, which are most often cancerous. In fact, 90 percent of cats who develop mammary cancer die from the disease. Mammary tumour cancer is most easily prevented by spaying the cat before her first heat, which usually occurs around 6 months of age.
• The possibility of developing pyometra, a serious infection that develops in the uterus, is completely eliminated with spaying.
• The chance your cat might develop malignant tumours of the ovaries and uterus are eliminated with spaying.
• Besides doing away with the likelihood that your cat will give birth to a litter of unwanted kittens, spaying also wipes out the possibility of your cat developing serious complications during the birthing process.
• Regular heat cycles increase the amount of stress on your female cat’s body, making her more prone to a variety of other illnesses, such as respiratory disease, parasite infestation, and bacterial infection.
• Male cats are no longer at risk for developing testicular cancer after they are neutered. Performing the surgery before 6 months of age provides the greatest health benefit.
• Intact male cats are aggressive and fight with other males, increasing the likelihood of sustaining serious injuries. Neutering a male cat takes the fight out of him.
• Because neutered males are less likely to battle with other cats, they are at less risk of contracting contagious and potentially fatal diseases, such as feline leukaemia and feline AIDS.
• Neutered males are less likely to stray from home, which reduces the possibility they will be struck by a car or killed by a predator.

Reduction in the population of homeless cats

There are thousands of cats and kittens on the streets and shelters, so many of them starving, ill and at the mercy of the elements. When so many of them suffer and die on the streets, why would you want to bring more into this world? Shouldn’t we be helping those first rather than breeding more? Which will in turn breed more. And more. So many of them will suffer and die.

How many of you have seen lactating dogs and cats on the streets, struggling for food, trying to feed their babies? They are emaciated beyond belief, and in each litter born on the streets, half ALWAYS die. These animals are under tremendous stress to care for their new litter. The poor mother dog/cat essentially self-destructs for the sake of its babies. And then repeats the cycle in 4 months, for the next 12-15 years. Spay and neuter your pets. And get these pups and kittens off the street. It’s a no-brainer!

Before you worry about a life that hasn’t even been conceived, please spare a thought to those which are living in pain and suffering.

Here are the most common objections to sterilisation that I've heard from people:

It’s not natural. I don’t want to interfere with their life, we don’t have the right.

Human birth control is not natural either. Antibiotics are not natural. Neither are lifesaving surgeries. Spectacles, hearing aids, prosthetics, IVF. I could go on. So why this concern only with animal birth control?

If you think you don’t have the right to decide something for that animal, that ship has sailed.

When you buy a dog/cat, you are already buying an animal that has been bred based on human whims and fancies, and for a lot of money. There is nothing natural about it. By adopting a dog or a cat, feeding it processed food, putting a dog on a leash or keeping a cat indoors - you are already interfering with their natural life. That’s not how they were naturally meant to be. Vaccinating them, deworming them, feeding them supplements, them sleeping on a bed in an AC room…you get the drift.

The amount of garbage on the streets is not natural and neither is the number of automobiles today that injure so many dogs and cats and other animals. The increased demand for dairy, and the treatment of cows and buffalos to that end, hardly natural. Ever taken a horse or camel or elephant ride? Have an aquarium or pet birds in a cage? Animal testing? Go to a zoo?

The points here are – 1) you are already part of many unnatural actions on animals, so cut the hypocrisy, and 2) if something unnatural leads to a better quality of life for a creature (human or animal), reduces pain and suffering, it’s NOT wrong.

But I love kittens and I want a house full of them. OR, I’ll get them all adopted.

You can still ADOPT a house full of kittens. There are already too many homeless cats and kittens looking for homes. Couldn't you get those adopted instead of bringing more into the world?

But it’ll be an indoor cat. It won’t go out and mate so there won’t be any pups or kittens.

See behavioural and health benefits discussed above. Even if you keep your cat indoors, you will have to deal with those issues, which can become difficult to manage in the long term.

I want my pet to have at least one litter, experience motherhood once. I will spay her after that.

Being a parent for a pet is very different from being a parent as a human. As pet owners, we often tend to pin human emotions and desires on our animals. Reproduction is an instinctive behaviour for pets; it is about the survival of genes and a drive to mate - not a desire for the emotion and experience of motherhood.

There is no medical or scientific evidence that it is advisable to let the cat mate at least once before sterilisation. It is best to spay them before the first heat cycle.

Sonu, whom this blog is named after, and her siblings taught me the biggest lesson on why it is important to spay and neuter. Long before my family and I understood the importance of spaying and neutering, we had our indoor-outdoor cat Sonu deliver two litters back-back, within 3 months. Till date, I regret not having spayed her way earlier, for she went through a very rough phase with a total of 8 kittens to care for in a matter of months. By the time her first batch of kittens were weaned, she was already pregnant with her second litter, giving us no time to spay her. This happens in a LOT of indoor-outdoor cats, especially during breeding season. She lost a lot of blood during her second delivery and took a long time to regain her health. She was super stressed, to the point that she started attacking her first litter as she neared her second delivery.

Her two brothers, Gattu and Simba, got into many many violent fights as they grew older. I had to get them treated for grievous multiple times, from torn skin to broken bones. Gattu passed away and Simba just disappeared - before they were even two years old.

SPAY. NEUTER. ADOPT.

Sonu, Gattu and Simba