Keep Your Pet From Being A Litterbug

What if there were a simple, safe, surefire solution to preventing the loss of an estimated 6 million pets per year? And, at the same time, a solution that contributes to your own pet leading a longer, healthier and happier life?

And if that weren’t enough, how about a magic bullet that will make your pet more loving, affectionate and better behaved?

This year millions of pet owners will achieve all of this and more by having their beloved female pets spayed or male pets neutered. In doing so, they’ll earn a well-deserved badge of honor for being a responsible pet owner.

Neutered pets can’t produce unwanted offspring, and they experience far fewer behavioral and medical problems than pets still sporting the family jewels.

From a behavioral standpoint, early neutering will prevent the aggressiveness, territory marking, fighting and roaming of both dogs and cats.

Most dogs that are hit by cars or attacked by other dogs are un-neutered males who will travel the world and jump the highest fence to get to a female dog in heat.

Female dogs still equipped with reproductive plumbing face a common infection of the uterus called pyometra, which is a surgical emergency and a life-threatening condition.

A cat out on the prowl can result in every kind of trauma known — they don’t call it a cat fight for nothing! And cat fighting almost guarantees their exposure to feline leukemia, feline AIDS and many other contagious and mostly fatal diseases.

Medically, the news is better yet. These pets have a greatly reduced incidence of the No. 1 killer, cancer, along with a reduced incidence of urinary tract disease. Early spay/neuter helps prevent prostate disease in male dogs and decreases the chances of your female pet getting mammary cancer to almost zero.

If you wait until your pet has had two or more heats, the chances of mammary cancer are greatly increased, and 99 percent of mammary tumors in cats and 50 percent in dogs are malignant.

Every time I see a mammary tumor, I ask, “Did you spay her before she had a heat?” and the answer is inevitably, “No.”

The most important thing to forget is the old wives’ tale that we should spay our cat/dog after one heat. Speaking personally, this makes me crazy when people think this. The better goal is to do it before “the hormones kick in.” Otherwise, with male cats especially, their urine takes on an extremely strong and unpleasant odor, and far too often they like to use the walls of the house like an Etch-A-Sketch pad as they spray urine.

It’s a habit that, unfortunately, often results in the cat either being removed from the home or euthanized. For dogs, if you beat the heat, the surgery greatly reduces such canine classic nuisances as humping and crotch sniffing.

In the bad old days, we used to recommend neutering and spaying pets after they had a litter or after they were 6 months old. Now we’ve found that it is simple, safe and effective to sterilize pets as young as 12 weeks of age. At an early age, the procedure has less bleeding, is an easier procedure to perform because of less body fat and, best of all, can be accomplished at the time of their last set of puppy or kitten vaccinations. If spayed or neutered early enough, these pets become four-legged versions of Peter Pan, preserved for eternity as sweet and playful adolescents.

Because pets don’t suffer from the sympathy syndrome that humans do, they bounce back from the surgery within hours with barely a hitch in their step. And because some owners, especially macho males, can’t stand the loss of their pets’ fuzzy dice, there are even artificial testicles.

These are available in five standard sizes with custom ones available for people who demand a dead ringer. These can be implanted with a realism that ensures that only my veterinarian knows for sure.

As a veterinarian of almost 20 years, I can attest to the fact that although this is probably the only major surgery your pet will ever have, in reality, great advances in anesthesia and surgery have made this procedure the equivalent of a veterinary lube, oil and filter job.

Even more amazing, sterilization via a simple injection, kind of like a vaccination, is now on the distant horizon.

If you love pets as much as I do, help halt the birth of unwanted pets and their ultimate euthanasia. Encourage your friends and family members to spay or neuter their pets to Stop! In the Name of Love.

And most of all: Don’t Litter!