Cat Neuter

If you do not want to breed your cat, please have it neutered. for its own health and as a contribution to reducing the pet population. It is not true that neutering causes obesity and laziness; overeating and getting too little exercise are to blame.



The best time for the female's ovario hysterectomy is before the first heat (but not before five or six months of age). The estrogens secreted during the heat period may prime the breast tissue for later tumor development. and approximately 90percent of them are malignant. Spaying early may help prevent tumors from developing.

The ovario hysterectomy is the surgical removal ("ectomy") of ovaries ("ova-rio") and the uterus ("hyster") through an abdominal incision. The size of the incision does not indicate your doctor's surgical skill. Some doctors make small incisions, and others like to have good exposure of the surgical area. The size of the organs to be removed will vary among animals as well.

Spaying is common surgery, but every pet is unique. and special care will betaken. A careful and thorough preoperative exam will determine your cat's ability to undergo surgery. Modern anesthesia (gas or inhalants) is very safe: an anesthetic caused death is extremely rare in a healthy pet. Your doctor will instruct you not to feed your cat for twelve hours before surgery, which will allow the stomach to empty. If there is food in the stomach during surgery, it may be vomited and pass into the breathing tubes and lungs, and an aspiration pneumonia could occur.If the monitoring equipment (which keeps track of breathing and heart functions during surgery) indicates a potential problem, your cat can be brought out of the anesthesia in a few minutes. Many veterinary hospitals have the same heart monitors used for humans in hospital intensive care units. Emergency fluids and drugs,which are rarely needed, are readily available.

Postoperative complications (such as infection) are also very rare because of aseptic surgical techniques: the operating room is well sterilized, as are the instruments, drapes, caps, masks, and gowns. Modern anesthetics allow most cats to be on their feet minutes after surgery, which also probably lessens the postoperative discomfort. Your cat may be home the same day or the next day, depending on the veterinary hospital procedure.

Home care after surgery consists of keeping the incision clean (don't allow your pet to lie on dirt), restricting your cat's exercise (cats will normally restrict their own activity), and checking the incision for swelling, redness, or discharge. If any infection develops, call your doctor. The sutures can be removed in a week.

Castration (surgical removal of the testes) is recommended to prevent or eliminate roaming, spraying, fighting, and breeding in male cats. The testicles are removed through a very small incision in each scrotal sac after the cat has been anesthetized. Most cats are sent home the same day, and surgical recovery is un-eventful. In fact, when our male cat CPU was castrated, he was out of the anesthesia in five minutes. I drove him home shortly afterward, and no sooner had we arrived home than he gobbled down some cat food and briskly mounted Mitzi, our tolerant female Siamese! Now that's what I call a recovery!

It may take up to a month for the roaming, spraying, fighting, and mounting behavior to stop, because it will take a few weeks for the male hormones still circulating in the body to be used up. A very small percentage of cats may still have some residual objectionable behavior. The best time for the surgery is before the behavior patterns develop - about six months of age.

Rarely, a male cat will have only one testicle (monorchid) or none at all(cryptorchid) in the sacs (scrotum). Although sperm will not be produced in the undescended testicle, male hormones will still be manufactured: your cat will continue to strut around like the neighborhood lover. One problem with undefended is that they frequently form a large sterol cell tumor after seven years of age. Again, this is extremely rare in cats.

If your female cat has been misdated (accidentally bred), an estrogen injection, followed by estrogen tablets given at home, is usually successful at preventing pregnancy if given within twenty-four hours of the breeding. The injection makes the uterine environment hostile to the sperm and egg; therefore, implantation won't occur. Estrogen can have toxic side effects, however, so this treatment is discouraged. Unless you really want to breed your cat, I recommend annotations.