Post by lexxasaurus on Dec 3, 2014 18:00:26 GMT -5
berbles my SIL was fostering some dwarf hamsters or gerbils or something (I don't remember past small and fluffy) earlier this year and a similar thing happened. We were all "ooh, let's go check on the little guys! Oh.. why... there's blood, what the shit?!" They had ganged up on the little one and eaten him!
We adopted Rox from a shelter, so she was already spayed. I would spay/neuter any dog we get though. I am not breeding them and I like to help control the pet population (I feel like Bob Barker saying that lol).
1. It was never our intention to breed our dogs, we wanted pets, not show dogs so spaying was always a given. It also happened to be in the contract from our breeder that if we had wanted to show them, we would have been co-owners until the time they were fixed. But since we wanted pets, not dogs to show, it wasn't an issue.
1.a. I didn't have dogs or cats growing up, but fixing pets was by far the norm. The only people I knew of who had pets that had puppies/kittens were people who lived out in the rural areas surrounding our town.
My kooky neighbor doesn't have her dog fixed. He's 6ish and she has no plans to have him neutered. She said something about how as women, when they take our ovaries it isn't good for us so she applies the same line of reasoning to her dog. I don't argue with her because it's pointless. It's too bad, her dog is sweet but it seems like he,s excitable and anxious a lot so maybe neutering would help him.
All three of my cats are rescues so they were neutered/spayed prior to adoption. My childhood pets (cat and dog) were spayed while in our care. I plan on adopting from rescues for the rest of my life so my hope is that they'll always be "fixed" beforehand. I do think it's important to spay/neuter like Bob Barker says.
1) One of our cats came from the shelter, so she was already spayed. The other cat is a stray we took in. He was quickly neutered. There is no need to create a million more kittens, however adorable they may be.
1 and 1a--yes I grew up in a household that spayed/neutered. And I chose to spay and neuter (even my bunny) because of health reasons. Less cancers etc--you know the deal. Population control of course is important, but not my personal reason because my animals are all indoor and all same sex.
berbles my SIL was fostering some dwarf hamsters or gerbils or something (I don't remember past small and fluffy) earlier this year and a similar thing happened. We were all "ooh, let's go check on the little guys! Oh.. why... there's blood, what the shit?!" They had ganged up on the little one and eaten him!
It blew my mind that the little one demolished the bigger one.
But the bigger one was a little... slow, I think. I really think he gave himself brain damage. We had one of those tall wire cages like this:
The big one would climb vertically up the side, all the way to the ceiling, hang upside down, and then let go. And fall all the way to the bottom. Then he'd get back up and do it again. And again. Fucking weirdo.
We have always spayed/neutered to avoid unwanted litters. My best friend is a vet so she does it for us. She assured me that the numbers that they lose are nowhere close the the one that you were given.
Our animals are rescues and have either come to us already spayed/neutered or it was required by shelter. For our cat we had 60 days to show proof that we had or we would be fined and forced to surrender the animal. Even if that wasn't the case we would have done it anyway because I don't want to deal with animals in heat/unplanned pregnancy (I'm not ready to be a grandma! ) and you know, it's part of being a responsible pet owner.
Post by BlackCanary on Dec 3, 2014 18:11:15 GMT -5
1. My cat was already neutered when I picked him up from the shelter. H had Abby spayed.
Even if Indy wasn't already neutered, I would have it done. He's not going to get some cat knocked up! And H did not want Abby to have puppies, as cute as they would have been.
I grew up in a house where all cats and dogs were spayed or neutered.
My cats were all dumped on the side of the road as kittens-2 boys and a girl from the same litter, and we got all 3 of them fixed as soon as the vet said they were big enough.
1) We didn't want them breeding with each other 2) We didn't want to deal with the female getting her period/going into heat 3) We didn't want the boys to get into literal pissing contests with each other.
Honestly, my cats being siblings and opposite sexes aside, I very strongly feel that unless you are a legitimate breeder or you show your cats/dogs/whatever, it's incredibily irresponsible to not get your pets spayed or neutered.
Oh, and my older brother has an un-neutered dog, and I think he's super irresponsible for not getting him fixed. I don't know his exact reasons why (considering he grew up in the same environment I did) but I think it has something to do with boys being precious about their balls.
And I was going to offer up another story, from the other side of the coin(purse).
I'm friends with a brother/sister who both still live with their parents. Parents are old-school Mexicans (e.g., my girlfriend wasn't allowed to spend the night at anyone's house growing up. And even when she was in college, her parents wouldn't let her spend the night with me.) They have several dogs and have bred a couple of them. Don't get me started.
But when they decided to keep a male puppy from a litter their female pom had, I started BEGGING my friends to talk to their parents about fixing the dogs.
Then the puppy was bred with another dog and they kept 2 of those pups. Females.
Now I was furiously pleading. My friends both said it was their dad who was against it. No taking of balls from anyone. No spending money on unnecessary vet visits. I was so upset and trying to explain that they were going to end up with inbred monster dogs because that boy dog was going to hump his daughters AND his mother.
While his parents were on vacation, my friend snuck the boy dog out to the vet and had him fixed. He knew how important it was, but also knew that his parents would never do it. The dog is a poofy pom, so you would have to really be looking to notice that his balls are gone.
Small victories.
Yes, I'm quoting myself. But it's for a pic so don't complain.
My friend actually had a perfect pic on FB. The second from the left is the neutered one. The outside ones are his daughters and the other fluff ball is his mother (she just passed away a few months ago). Fluffies are chi/poms and I assume he was bred with a chi to get the non-fluffy pups.
We always spayed and neutered our animals growing up.
One current cat was from the shelter and was spayed when we got her. We would have had it done no matter what. Our other cat was born in this guys garage. He was neutered by us. Anna (dog) was spayed when we got her. If we had gotten her before she was spayed, I would have considered breeding her because she has such a fantastic temperament which is not typical of her breed. I would probably have done it once or twice then had her spayed. I don't think I would consider breeding any other animal in the future, so they'll all be spayed or neutered.
All of my cats and my childhood dog have been spayed/neutered (fish don't count, right?). All but one of the cats were rescue or shelter animals; all of the cats have been indoor cats once we had them. This is how I was raised to take care of an animal.
Post by usuallylurking on Dec 3, 2014 18:24:00 GMT -5
Our 3 dogs are fixed - as far as H and I are concerned it's just what you do when you have a pet. So, in line with 1a, yes all of our dogs and cats were fixed growing up. My cat did have one litter of kittens though. I'm not sure if that was an oops or on purpose, but it was a pretty cool experience for me as a kid, and we got to keep one. Our 2 kittens (just adopted from the rescue yesterday!) are not yet fixed because they're only 11 weeks old and weigh under 2 lbs.
We were going to spay/neuter anyhow, but we were required to put down a $300 deposit when we adopted Luna.we got the check back once we sent in proof of spay/neuter from our vet.
I always assumed animals were fixed. Growing up, I didn't know any that weren't, besides my aunt's show dogs. I figured fancy show dogs were the only exception.
- If you spayed/neutered your pets - what motivated you to do so? It was required by the adoption agency. We had her spayed and then found out she had already been spayed at some point in her life ( she was an adult dog when I got her.)
1a - Did you grow up thinking that this was was just the way things were done? Yes we never had an intact dog growing up.
2 - If you did not/have not spayed/neutered your pets - why not? I didn't want to neuter my rabbit because he was an only rabbit and it is so $$$ BUT he was super aggressive and they said it might help his temperment so I did it. He was still and asshole. Turns out he had major fear issues of humans. I rehomed him to a family with 5 other rabbits who lived together in a finished basement. He was so much happier just chilling with other bunnies.
Oh, and my older brother has an un-neutered dog, and I think he's super irresponsible for not getting him fixed. I don't know his exact reasons why (considering he grew up in the same environment I did) but I think it has something to do with boys being precious about their balls.
And I was going to offer up another story, from the other side of the coin(purse).
I'm friends with a brother/sister who both still live with their parents. Parents are old-school Mexicans (e.g., my girlfriend wasn't allowed to spend the night at anyone's house growing up. And even when she was in college, her parents wouldn't let her spend the night with me.) They have several dogs and have bred a couple of them. Don't get me started.
But when they decided to keep a male puppy from a litter their female pom had, I started BEGGING my friends to talk to their parents about fixing the dogs.
Then the puppy was bred with another dog and they kept 2 of those pups. Females.
Now I was furiously pleading. My friends both said it was their dad who was against it. No taking of balls from anyone. No spending money on unnecessary vet visits. I was so upset and trying to explain that they were going to end up with inbred monster dogs because that boy dog was going to hump his daughters AND his mother.
While his parents were on vacation, my friend snuck the boy dog out to the vet and had him fixed. He knew how important it was, but also knew that his parents would never do it. The dog is a poofy pom, so you would have to really be looking to notice that his balls are gone.
Small victories.
I had a friend in college who had FAKE BALLS put on all her dogs after she got them fixed so they would still " look like men"... Obviously we weren't close friends for long because that was just the tip of her crazy.
This isn't a debate. I don't care what your opinions are (well, I DO, I'm just not gonna argue about it here in this thread, LOL).
1 - If you spayed/neutered your pets - what motivated you to do so? Because that's just what you're supposed do. Also, my landlord required it for our lease.
1a -Did you grow up thinking that this was was just the way things were done? Yes & no. I remember my mother saying that you should let female cats have 1 litter and then spay. And if you're intentionally going to breed the dog. This was before backyard breeders were a known negative thing.
2 - If you did not/have not spayed/neutered your pets - why not?
It was required by the animal shelter that we bring back paperwork that proved we had her spayed but we would have done it anyway for obvious reasons. We don't want puppies.
I have neutered any cat I've had as an adult. All 3 of my boys had to be neutered as a condition of the sale. I am allergic to cats but can tolerate certain long haired breeds, so rather than risk adopting I find a responsible show cat breeder and buy a "pet quality" kitten or retired "premier" whose fur/dander doesn't set me off. I'd spay/neuter anyway.
My parents weren't especially responsible when they were younger; they're much better now.
And I was going to offer up another story, from the other side of the coin(purse).
I'm friends with a brother/sister who both still live with their parents. Parents are old-school Mexicans (e.g., my girlfriend wasn't allowed to spend the night at anyone's house growing up. And even when she was in college, her parents wouldn't let her spend the night with me.) They have several dogs and have bred a couple of them. Don't get me started.
But when they decided to keep a male puppy from a litter their female pom had, I started BEGGING my friends to talk to their parents about fixing the dogs.
Then the puppy was bred with another dog and they kept 2 of those pups. Females.
Now I was furiously pleading. My friends both said it was their dad who was against it. No taking of balls from anyone. No spending money on unnecessary vet visits. I was so upset and trying to explain that they were going to end up with inbred monster dogs because that boy dog was going to hump his daughters AND his mother.
While his parents were on vacation, my friend snuck the boy dog out to the vet and had him fixed. He knew how important it was, but also knew that his parents would never do it. The dog is a poofy pom, so you would have to really be looking to notice that his balls are gone.
Small victories.
I had a friend in college who had FAKE BALLS put on all her dogs after she got them fixed so they would still " look like men"... Obviously we weren't close friends for long because that was just the tip of her crazy.
Neuticles. They are a thing. If it means crazy people will fix their male dogs, IDGAF!
I grew up assuming that's what you are supposed to do. My mom used to catch stray cats that wandered on our yard (we lived on an acreage in the country) and would bring them to the vet to get fixed and to get shots.