Spaying/Neutering and Castration of Animals

[Techydude]

Do you think that Spaying/Neutering and Castration of Animals is wrong? imo i think not only is it wrong and causes unnecessary suffering and trauma of animals and is mutilation. Imo it's animal cruelty.

[Ioanna]

go visit puerto rico and tell me all the homeless dogs you see starving and worn is not animal cruelty.

[KD]

yeah..i mean if one wanted to be REALLY extreme I think you could call any 'ownership' or domestication of animals to be somewhat cruel, particularly if they are not eating a very natural diet. Even eating garbage and having no balls they still seem to be pretty happy just chewing on a shoe or whatever....so I say no.

[TylerDurden]

go visit puerto rico and tell me all the homeless dogs you see starving and worn is not animal cruelty.

  True, not castrating leads to overpopulation of diseased strays etc., but there are alternatives. For example, one can perform a vasectomy or tube-tying, as applicable re gender, rather than outright spaying/castration. It just costs quite a bit more, that's all.

I wouldn't call castrated dogs "happy". I would suggest a law forbidding any owners from owning a pet unless a) they fed their pets a species-appropriate raw diet, b) all inbred dogs or other animals( comprising most domesticated species) should be put down and only healthy breeds thereof kept, so no chihuahuas/great danes etc. c) that some form of method be used to prevent mass breeding such as locking up their pets in gardens/houses or to use the animal equivalent of vasectomies/tube-tying on their pets and d) that people are only allowed to have pets if the pets are given some useful work to justify their existence, so police dogs, guide dogs for the blind, sheep-dogs etc. would be fine as would any pets used for guarding children or for carrying things etc. I despise the use of animals as ornamental "lap-dogs" and the like.

[Techydude]

Imo I don't believe in pets, I wouldn't want to be owned. I also frown upon the domestication and neolithic raising of animals especially being paleo and I want to be free myself let alone not enslave an animal.

But im not against and love pet owners! I love dogs ^_^.

But in the wild disease, survival of the fittest, natural selection, and balance and ecosystems and animals in their original form and no interaction of meddling of humans (cities, ecosystem destroying, zoos captivity, etc) would prevent the overpopulation/extinction of animals.

[CitrusHigh]

I do not agree with cutting open an animal. And cutting out pieces of it, regardless of the reasoning [assuming this is an animal you want to remain alive]. Dogs for example only go in to heat for a couple weeks, a couple times per year and are only receptive for a portion of that time. In most cases you have enough control to keep them from getting pregnant.

Jessica, if you're reading this, yes I'm aware of the irony, but joy beyond mention has illuminated this world thanks to that little error. And that is another reason for my not supporting such mutilation (i know a loaded word, but that is precisely what it is). If my parents had cut the skin of my dick off when I was born without asking me, well up until a few days ago I would have been pissed enough to do something about it. In fact I probably would have sought some sort of vengeance of the eye for an eye kind, what a horrible thing to do to a child....or a pet...

[Techydude]

As a last resort in the reality of this spaying/neutering can be used since it's better than euthenasia, but a better option are animal contraceptives, vasectomies, and tube tyings to prevent birth.

[goodsamaritan]

When I was 12 I visited the USA and had my first encounter with our American hosts with their young female dog.

One day the dog was missing, said was taken to the VET, I asked what the dog was sick of, our hosts said she was going to be SPAYED!

I had no idea what SPAYING was, so our hosts taught us foreign children what spaying was.... me and my sister were HORRIFIED!

I was 12, my sister was 11, young kids... who were so distraught with such a foreign ALIEN idea that a completely healthy young dog was to be mutilated!

That was more than 30 years ago... was not a practice in my home country... I had never heard of it then.

Today I am still disgusted at the very idea.  And recently I had my kids interested in taking care of Guinea Pigs and Hamsters and those websites with tips keep on hammering the spaying mantra.  I was reading the websites out loud to my kids and I had to explain with an angry heart at such gross practices.

We are keeping pets and we want them to be healthy in every way, and that includes reproduction.  We got 2 girls and 1 boy hamster, the better to reproduce with.  We got 2 rabbits, male and female and ordered a 2nd female.

Just yesterday a big feral cat that usually hangs out in our garden killed our 2 rabbits, we thought at 6 months they were big enough, but the big feral cat still killed them for food... mainly their liver.  Total of 9 rabbits now that feral cats had killed.  We taught the kids to accept such incidences as vegetarian rabbits are indeed food for carnivores.

We have put our minds to buying or renting a cat trap to round up the cats.  In the past we have captured kittens and no we did not destroy them, we transported them to far away places where they cannot come back and have the opportunity of living.

[Celeste]

Our male dog is not neutered and is generally very mellow. Except recently he started acting very odd - skittish when I would walk him at night. He would get spooked at noises and want to run home. And recently twice starting growling at other large male dogs. When we were hiking he lunged at a large German Shepard another large male aggressive dog. He also started to get diarrhea. Then it occurred to me that we had changed his diet. We were using a leaner raw chicken in the mornings. We more recently went back to a fattier chicken. Also has been off grassfed for awhile. But just with increasing his fat level he has settled down a lot. I remember when I was also experimenting years ago with cutting my fat intake and feeling so anxious. I recently told my boyfriend when our dog was going through this, "It's like he's going loco".

Back to the topic - My boyfriend does not want to neuter him. For me, I think I have not wanted to own a dog in the past as I didn't believe in it. And yes, I have been to India and they have started a neutering, giving health care and marking of all the stray/"independent" dogs. There is a great idea I thought. They are EVERYWHERE!

[CatTreats]

I have a bunny and he is neutered. I don't think I could have it any other way, unfortunately. I don't see the need for cats and dogs, but rabbits are INCREDIBLY territorial and aggressive with their hormones. Both males and females. They will spray/mark the house, become very protective of their area or parts of the house (lunging, biting, grunting, stomping) and make it difficult to go to those places, and hump everything (including full ejaculation on said objects/animals/people).

One might argue that we shouldn't have them as pets if that's necessary, and I guess from a paleo perspective this could be true. But, we love our bunny, and I wouldn't give him up for the world. I can at least rest easy knowing that I feed him a species-appropriate diet. No processed foods like rabbit pellets - only fresh, organic vegetables, herbs, and fruits. This is the equivalent of feeding cats and dogs raw meat, bones, and organs instead of kibble. So, I can attest that we provide the best of the best for him. Besides, we adopted him as an already neutered male, so it wasn't exactly something we did.

I do think that it's silly to spay/neuter animals if there isn't a reason. I'm sure all of us would miss our reproductive organs, and we definitely wouldn't like having to give them up against our will. But, I'm not sure what other option there is when you have both male and females of the same species living in your house, so there's that ...

P.S. I have to agree with TD (even if that was posted years ago) about not being allowed to have a pet if you won't feed it right. I can't even tell you how many times I want to explode because I'm watching someone feed their dog absolute shit. The most recent ones were: a multi-grain bagel to a beautiful pure-bred malamute (such a shame), and a rice crispy treat to their golden retriever / samoyed mix. It's heartbreaking really. Most of the time if you mention feeding a species-appropriate diet, they say something about not having the time or money to do that. Well, I think the bottom line is: If you don't have the time or money to feed your pet right, don't have the pet. I doubt that excuse would work if your human child died of starvation or malnutrition.

[goodsamaritan]

We just rented a cat trap from the town pound.

We also bought a full grown female rabbit named "Cotton."  Hoping to find a new full grown male rabbit.  Will see if they can reproduce and not be eaten by cats.  By then we should have caught the big bad cats in our home grounds.

[CatTreats]

We just rented a cat trap from the town pound.

We also bought a full grown female rabbit named "Cotton."  Hoping to find a new full grown male rabbit.  Will see if they can reproduce and not be eaten by cats.  By then we should have caught the big bad cats in our home grounds.

Why are you going to breed them? Just to catch cats?

[eveheart]

We just rented a cat trap from the town pound.

Where I live (large urban area), castrating household pets is done to control the feral cat and dog populations. No, we're not all raising rabbits and chickens, but we are solving the sanitation problem that comes from an unchecked animal population.

Years ago, I moved into a house with a feral cat problem. We couldn't open the windows because of the stench from cat urine in the flower beds. With a trap, we caught 12 feral cats in 24 hours and took them to the pound, where they were most likely put to death.

Most US urban areas have all the animals they need to supply the demand for pets. Excess animals are killed in large numbers. I don't mean to sound like an animals rights crusader, but I'll have to admit that a large breeding stock of dogs and cats in an urban environment does not work for me.