To get his cat neutered?

[snippysnip]

Hi all, I’ve namechanged as there are some aspects of this post that could be outing!

DP and I have moved in with his DGF while we save for a deposit. The living arrangement is working well but DGF is quite a stubborn (albeit lovely) man and can often not be reasoned with if he doesn’t want to do something. He doesn’t have dementia or anything like that, but what he does have is a 4yo tom cat who has never been to a vet, meaning he’s never had any jabs and hasn’t been neutered. He’s mostly cuddly but can be very aggressive. He bites, sprays over everything and he just STINKS!

WIBU to take the cat to the vet to be jabbed and neutered? I would happily pay for this to be done if it meant a quiet life with a cat that doesn’t scratch, bite or stink. Is neutering as effective in calming the cat down when they’re out of the kitten phase?

TIA!

I would do it. Think if all the poor homeless kittens he is creating. Highly irresponsible to let an intact tom roam around.

Think how many poor unwanted kittens have ended up in shelters because of this roaming tom! I would insist upon doing it!

You can't insist on someone else getting their cat neutered.
It should be done but it isn't OP's call.

Take the cat to the vet. Tell him when you’ve done it . An unneutered male wandering around isn’t doing anyone any favours .

And if it should happen to die under anaesthetic? Unlikely but it can happen.
Talk to him. But ultimately it's his decision.

Tough one. Both my cats are neutered and spayed, they both seem happier and they don’t add to the homeless kitten population. I think getting a cat neutered is a big decision and a worry for most owners, I mean there is the risk under general anaesthetic and also the fact that you would be potentially altering an animals life in numerous ways (personality, habits etc). I am all for spaying and neutering as a kitten but I think the moral lines get a little more blurred when it is no longer a kitten, as they have lived a good part of their lives a certain way, whereas kittens that are neutered would not really know any different. I’m not saying it’s the wrong thing to do, I’m saying the decision requires a bit more thought and should lie solely with the owner. I think if it were me I would just take the cat for vaccinations on the sly, fairly low risk of any side effects and not nearly as big a potential impact as deciding to get it neutered.

If you do it on the sly and he dies it won't be very sly.

While not common, my Step-Mother's cat had an adverse reaction to the anesthesia and died while being spayed.

It might be routine surgery on a pet, but it's still surgery.

But it's not your cat, presumably he's registered under granddad's name at the vet? So surely the vet won't perform an operation on your request, granddad will have to sign consent forms. Have you offered him to pay for it?

I am 1000% in favour of neutering cats, but don't forget they shave the area when they do it. So he's going to look pretty odd for a week or do when he returns, especially if he's medium or long haired.

I think the better approach is just say to gf "This cat needs to be neutered. I've made an appointment next week and I'm taking him." If gf really objects he can put his foot down and say no, but if he just isn't bothered he will probably just say it's fine. Clearly he isn't going to do it himself.

The most tiny amount of fur is shaved off for a male neuter. It’s hard to see when you know about it, no way the GF would spot it if he wasn’t looking.

I would definitely have him done OP. It’s in the cats interests first and foremost: he’s at high risk of life threatening/ limiting diseases at the moment, not to mention fighting wounds and the risks of getting lost or run over chasing a female.

It depends I guess, I volunteer at the RSPCA and they shave the entire area, plus a spot on the front leg for the drip to go in.

If he notices say that you read some charity picks strays off the street and neuters them and they must have thought he was a stray because of his craggy face!

I think go from the angle that the cat will live around 40% longer, if neutered. Don't promise him that he'll stop spraying or smelling, that varies in a cat that has had it don't so late.

I agree that all cats should be done, but just remember that he isn't 'stubborn' he's entitled to his own opinion.

DO IT! PLEASE!

I hate people owning unneutered Toms as nine times out of ten that cat is everyone else's problem. As a rule they tend to be aggressive and get into fights with people's pets, leaving the owners to pay for treatment or having them PTS, they stink to high heaven and if one manages to piss in the gap of your car door, have fun driving with the windows open for a week (bitter experience). That little shit also pissed on my washing every time I put it out.

Cats are bad enough shitting in people's gardens (apologies to my neighbour's, my cat probably does it on occasion though mainly on our own lawn) but Tom cats are so, so much worse.

Get it done, for the sake of DGF, his poor cat and most importantly, his neighbours.

good luck doing it on the sly....the cat comes home in a bloody £25 red jumper for a week! And these jumpers don’t work. The cat gets out of them! And the vet told us to just take her out of it whenever she needs a wee. Because the cat tells us that obviously.

But I’m all for getting him neutered!! Just maybe tell grandad first!

You could just pass it off as his winter coat I suppose

Little Sod? Says it all really.

I have two cats Zero. I love them to bits, but they are absolute bastards!

And if it should happen to die under anaesthetic? Unlikely but it can happen.

He is an unfettered tom cat. He will disappear for a few days on a regular basis anyway. It's just that this time he won't come back.

The chances are that this is going to happen sooner or later anyhow, The likelihood of an entire tomcat dying peacefully in his sleep are roughly nil.

He will be killed or badly injured one day by a younger, fitter, stronger male, or he will get run over, or lost or trapped, all because he is in thrall to his bollox.

And as you say - death under anaesthetic for a healthy animal is HIGHLY unlikely.

But it's not your cat, presumably he's registered under granddad's name at the vet?

It seems the cat has never even been inoculated. He ma well not be registered with any vet.

*unneutered, not unfettered

I did this.

Neighbour's cat. She kept having kittens in our garden. Every fucking year from she was no more than a kitten herself. The kittens then became our problem "because they're in your garden and how do we know they are Blackie's kittens anyway"
We would feed them, and her, she'd hang out in our shed with them, then we'd ship the kittens off to the rescue center once they were old enough. Neighbour shouldn't have had a fucking cat, they ignored the poor thing. She was becoming visibly unhealthy and the successive batches of kittens were becoming unwell and some were dying before we could even get to them.

So one day, after the third lot I think it was, I caught the cat and took her to be spayed.

A few weeks later the neighbour knocked at my door and said "have you seen my cat? She went missing and when she came back she had a big patch of fur missing blah blah".

I was the picture of blank faced innocence. What I didn't tell them was that Blackie, freed from motherhood and from the need of our shed, had decamped permanently to the house of an old lady I knew, two streets away, who kept her fed on chicken and treated her like a queen. She remains there to this day.

Can't say I have any regrets.

I probably should not be saying this but when I volunteered with CP most unneutered pets would wander into other peoples homes and become their problems - cats tend to have two homes, their own and an adopted one.

We would trap and neuter especially toms as most people feel a tom cat will not bring kittens home which is very unreasonable because toms will impregnate feral or stray females and then we have thousands of unwanted kittens born every year who either end up dying young due to not having food or illness. It is not fair on the cats.

We used to spend thousands a year in getting strays and ferals neutered and owned cats. People just do not want to pay the money but if you have a look at your local or surround CP branches some of them will have special offers on to have your cat neutered for £10 and microchipped, ours is running one this year.

Local RSPCA's also run vet clinics every week where they will neuter, vaccinate and microchip your pet for as little as £25.

He’s not registered with any vet so as far as consent forms go, he doesn’t ‘belong’ to anybody. I might fib to DGF that I’ve seen a lot of reports of a ‘cat virus’ going around (he probably won’t ask what) so I’m taking DCat to be innoculated and on my return I will tell him how the vet chastised me to neuter him (which won’t be a lie as I’m fully expecting the vet to lay into me!)

If he knows that a vet has advised it, he’ll probably accept that it is very important and very necessary and will agree to have him fixed.

Just to reiterate for those in the back, DGF doesn’t have any moral objection to neutering his pets, he just doesn’t appreciate why it’s so important.

Just do it on the sly. It's not worth agro and needs doing for all sorts of reasons. If he clocks it's been done just say it must have been a cats charity that scooped him up in one those spay/neuter release projects. If you make it a fight it will be harder to get done.