Spaying and Neutering Health Benefits
Spaying and neutering have health benefits for your pet. Here is what the ASPCA says regarding the importance of spaying or neutering for your pet’s long-term health:
- Spaying helps prevent malignant or cancerous uterine infections and breast tumors in about 50 percent of dogs and 90 percent of cats. Your pet gets the best protection if you have it done before your pet’s first heat.
- Neutering your male companion prevents testicular cancer and some prostate problems.
Additional Benefits of Spaying and Neutering
There are other possible benefits to having your pet spayed or neutered, such as lowered aggression levels in males. Females won’t go into heat, which means less yowling and urination.
The procedure is certainly much cheaper than suddenly having to care for many more extra mouths one day.
Animals are also much more inclined to roam around while searching for a mate, which increases the chances of getting lost or injured somehow.
Another Reason to Spay and Neuter
Approximately 6.5 million animals are taken into animal shelters every year. Roughly 3.3 million are dogs, and 3.2 million are cats. About 1.5 million of those end up euthanized. You can see the problem we have with the overpopulation of dogs and cats. By spaying or neutering, you are taking responsibility and not contributing to that problem.
With a lot of campaigning for spaying and neutering the statistics have been improving over the years. For example, ten years ago, there were approximately 2.6 million animals euthanized annually. While this is an improvement, we still have a long way to go.
We want to see that number as close to 0 as possible. So, we ask pet owners to please do their part.
Adopt Don’t Shop
Another way to continue to bring the numbers down is to shop for a pet at your local shelter and encourage others to do the same. You are saving lives! Even if you want a purebred pet, there are all sorts of rescues for purebred animals—type in the breed and the word “rescue” for your internet search.
A website you can use when you are looking to adopt a new family member is petfinder.com. They have lots of search options to use to find the pet you want. You can shop for dogs, cats, and small animals. The site features choices such as breed, sex, age, temperament, etc. And, they link to many rescues and shelters, so you can often find a pet close to your home.
Myths
There have been some myths spread around about spaying or neutering.
One of them is that it will make your pet fat. Pets do not gain weight because they have been spayed or neutered. Pets gain weight usually because of lack of exercise, overfeeding, or poor diet.
Some people believe that spaying or neutering is a cure-all for behavioral problems. Indeed, as mentioned above, it can help. However, there may be more reasons for behavioral problems that need to address. If you are having behavior issues with your pet, consult your veterinarian. We offer behavioral counseling here at Pine Creek, which can also help.
Summary
Our team here at Pine Creek Animal Hospital in Christiana, Pennsylvania, is dedicated to keeping your pets healthy and happy. We also want to do whatever we can to stop unnecessary animal deaths.
We offer spaying and neutering procedures and are happy to discuss any questions that you might have about them.
Feel free to contact us, and we will work together to find the best solution for any problem.
Sincerely,
Dr. Ashley Tuma
