Should You Neuter Your Family Cat Or Dog? (Part 1)

So you’re trying to decide whether to neuter your dog or cat. Are there advantages and disadvantages? And what will happen from going ahead with the operation?

When you browse the Internet, you are rarely shown both sides of the argument. This is probably because, aside from a few instances of poor health (making any surgery a problem), or actually wanting the dog or cat to reproduce (for example, a show dog or cat), there are very few reasons to not neuter your cat or dog.

Neutering helps decrease the pet population. Although puppies and kittens are cute, few owners are willing to raise a complete litter as they grow. These pets must go somewhere, and so are set loose or put in shelters, looking at an early death. Unwanted pets also mean more wild dogs and cats, with the associated problems in cities and towns. As well, the life of a homeless former pet is not a good one, and so neutering prevents any pet from ending up like that.

Many of the concerns for neutering your dog or cat are because of our own feelings on the topic. What seems to be life-altering surgery to us is not the same to our cats and dogs. And while there’s the biological instinct to breed in all creatures, there does not appear to be issues when it is prevented.

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