My sister ended up getting a kitten from the spca on the weekend. She was 8 weeks old and had been speyed already!!!! I know that they want to stop unwanted kittens etc and i totally agree, but isn't 8 weeks a bit harsh on the poor little thing? I was always told to get them speyed once their adult teeth started coming through at about 5 months. What do you think?
The trouble with some women is that they get all excited about nothing,and then they marry him.
I heard this from an SPCA worker the other evening, actually. I understand that the limiting factor in speying early is the ability to see the organs concerned! I doubt it's significantly stressful for the animal - it's such a small wound these days when it's done.
I don't blame them at all for shifting to early speying, to avoid accidents and the vets having to remove kitten-full uteri, which must be a bit challenging on a regular basis.
It's not something I would do, but guess the lack of responsibililty of humans has made the SPCA resort to black and white control.. wonder if vets are having to wear loup specs to find the organ... and if they should have oestrogen replacement
I know I've been searching about speying dogs and get both sides of the story.. so trying to chose a happy medium...
I don't want my foxie with her daddy's long legs having tendon problems when obviously for her running is an important part of life,so early spey seemed to have a slight risk.. but then Im not going to wait until she is fully mature at 15mth in bone size.. a few too many seasons could have occurred.
have you done a search regarding effects of early speying.??
One of the major effects would be less unwanted kittens! Less dumped kittens! Less people endlessly continuing the chain of "oh, how cute, let's let her have them ..." and then taking them to the SPCA for disposal when some of them aren't cute enough, or there are more than wanted.
I totally agree Isla that we don't need more unwanted kittens... it just seemed so young and they are so tiny. I had never heard of it being done that young before
The trouble with some women is that they get all excited about nothing,and then they marry him.
When my father was in small animal practice, his advice to everyone was 12 weeks for both dogs and cats. At that age the bits were big enough to find and the operation was relatively easy because the animal had not had time to get fat.
Having a litter of kittens or pups takes quite a bit out of a cat or dog, so allowing them one litter "to grow up" is daft.
Having no gonads tends to increase the risk of overweight and it's associated health problems, but reduces the risk of other problems.
So, do them as young as possible. At 8 weeks ovaries and testes might be a bit small, but 12 weeks is old enough. Also, the younger they are then the better they recover.
My parents have had wild cats on their property for many years, coming over from a wild colony on a neighbouring farm. I think someone put the SPCA onto the colony, cos they haven't had to rescue wild kittens for a few years now.
Anyway, five wild cats hung around their place and one by one, my Mum trapped them and had them speyed, a couple quite young. Even our vet was ok with doing it early (about 12 weeks as far as we could tell), knowing it was for the right reasons.
my girl got speyed at 4 months old (which i thought was early). but we had to, as she went on heat at 4 months and her brother (we got 2 kittens at the same time) was "mm mm mming" her!!!!!! he got neutered at the same time.
OK - this is the home of always female pets so I have always had my girls speyed around 5 - 6 months depending on their maturity and whether the estrogen was kicking in. When it did - spey time.
I know I am from the old school with Veterinary medicine but I have always preferred my animals to reach a semblance of maturity as a preference.
However - I do understand the SPCA position to spey before releasing to a new home but I do wonder if it is totally necessary at eight weeks. I can't remember what age my kittens where when I got them (through the local Vet) but they were not speyed and I arranged that when they were older. There are mature responsible people out there but I guess it has to be a lowest common denominator situation when you don't know people personally. Sad really as in my world - I still prefer the old adage of "feeling their oats" prior to speying. I have no medical or Veterinary knowledge as to why it is preferable except that I have always had "mature natured" animals and I like it that way.
A couple of years ago when my sister adopted two kittens from the local SPCA she was given a voucher for a free speying for both of them when they got older. Have you ever thought that the SPCA has had to change policy as people were NOT getting the cats speyed even though it was free? This way, they know that the kittens are speyed and they won't be having any dumped either with them or in the 'wild'.
i used to go to our local animal shleter with my kids to do volenteer work and i can say with my hand on my heart its a good thing to get them done before addopting them out again, yes it sounds too early but there were kittens with kittens in there...so sad to see...so many animals loose their cute appeal and just get left out in the cold...these shelters are over run by adult cats looking for loving homes, buts always the kittens gooing out hte door.
I was lucky that we were building this palce and had no where to put the 15 or more cats or i may have bought them all home with me...
One thing that did break my heart were full grown cats that had been dropped off as their owners were going over seas to live...WTF....we bought ours from the UK 2 dogs and a cat..there was no way i would have come here without them...i know not everyone can do that but it was the hardest thing to see for me....so yes i have to agree with the SPCA's policy for sure.
