To hate the excuse “she got out before we could spay her”

[Soubriquet]

With cats

It’s never, “we wanted one litter” “or we thought she would make a good mum” even though these are awful excuses its always “she got out before we could spay her and we didn’t know she was pregnant”

Someone I know, her cat has just had kittens. I haven’t said anything as it’s none of my business, but I know this would be her excuse

Seriously, spay your cats! They can get pregnant from 4 months of age. That isn’t fair to what is essentially a teenaged mum. Vets will spay from 4 months. No need to let her have a season unlike dogs

Neuter your toms. They will roam for miles fighting other males if left intact. They will stalk females and yowl for them.

Why would any owner think that it would be good for their cat to 'have a litter'? It's a genuine question because I don't know the answer. Why is it good for them?

I come from a viewpoint of there are just too many unwanted animals about and they don't all have a great life and peaceful death. I cannot comprehend why any animal owner (who loves them) would want to risk a les than lovely life for any offspring. There are so, so many who need rescuing.

@Alsohuman Is she KC registered? Do you have permission to breed from her own breeder? Has she under gone all breed specific health tests advised by KC? Are you a registered KC breeder? Obviously the studs owner should also tick all of those boxes.

If the answer to any of those are no you shouldn’t be breeding her.

I feel the same about dogs too - is it good for them to have a litter? We've always had our rescues spayed and neutred, coloured perhaps by the sad state we had them ourselves.

@Alsohuman

Cats don't get broody. They don't want to "experience being a mum". Feline sex is pretty brutal and not pleasant for the female on the receiving end

How on earth can you possibly know this?

Cat penisis are barbed.

Not MY idea of fun... 🙄😂😂😂

Bloody hell where are all of these unwanted kittens??

I retired a couple of years ago and wanted a new kitten as my previous cat had died the year before. So I was someone who would be home most of the time to look after a pet, I have a decent sized garden on a quiet estate away from main roads and I have the money to pay vets bills.
However it took me six months scouring the country to find a kitten. They seemed to be snapped up as soon as they were born.

The rescue we have gotten our cats from doesn’t even let cats be adopted until they have been spayed or neutered.

People did used to slay kittens before we had a kinder way of reducing amount of kittens...

I feel conflicted about this. Partly I feel like any animal should get the chance at being a mother. Its what nature had in mind and is a key drive for all creatures. I equally recognise that shelters are often full to bursting and not all animals get a happy home/ending.

We have a rescue cat who (before we had her) was a teenage mum, pregnant when she came into the shelter. She had 4 kittens at under a year. One died :( despite her being a good mum.

Anyway, means I look at her and know she got to be a mum and now she is neutered and no more kittens will happen.

Yes, yes, I know this is sentimental and luckily have never had to make the choice on a practical basis, but even if its against the grain its how I feel. Like we are playing god.

I know, humans domesticated cats in the first place...its basically our fault we now have a problem with fertility and hence its our responsibility to make a responsible choice on their behalf.....

Not a direct analogy but still a philosophical conundrum - If it was me (as a human) and people gave me the choice - well we can sterilise you at 16 or you can take a chance - anyway your babies will be removed and who knows who they will end up with? Guess I'd go for the no babies option. Cats don't think like this - I mean I don't really think mine ponders the fate of her offspring. Just interesting to think about '' If I was the cat what would I want to do?

fairyliz... CatsProtectionLeague... the adverts are so sad. I can't believe you haven't seen even one of them. There is no shortage of pet animals wanting to be adopted.

Someone I know done this, but with dogs. Has two dogs, an intact Male and female. Had an "accidental" litter of two, sold them both. Then a few months later the dog has another litter! Accidental though, of course. When questioned about why they haven't neutered the male, their answer was just they haven't gotten round to it yet. But they wonder why the female keeps getting pregnant

Now you've all MADE me look at the photos on our local cat rescue.

Interestingly (we are rural) most come from urban centres like Bradford where there are so many street cats and the shelters run out of room.

I didn't know my female cat had not been spayed when I had her about 12 years ago, But she got pregnant, by a big ugly,rough looking tom cat from my neighbourhood.. She subsequently had four kittens, three males and one female.They were all spayed or neutered later.

I kept two of the kittens with the Mother cat, kittens now aged 10. The other male went to a friend in another village, and the female went to my Daughter and her family down south.

What do you expect them to say - ' I'm an irresponsible owner'? Of course they'll say something like that.

Peak kitten time for people wanting them from rescue is April to Aug. This is what the shelter told me - we were looking for a year before we found the right cat for our situation (Ok - she chose us, as usual with a cat).

We have two six-year-old cats and a kitten. The kitten is booked in to be neutered as soon as he’s 4 months old I’d actually have loved to have a littler of kittens from my girl cat but I looked into it and find out how dangerous it can be for cats, and how expensive and exhausting it is if you’re going to look after the pregnant mum and kittens properly, and got her (and our other adult cat) neutered at 4 months too. A tiny part of me always selfishly regretted not having a litter of gorgeous fluffy kittens but it’s not the responsible thing to do.

Celia Hammond has the right idea, no feline leaves her rescues before being neutered. She also neuters any stray as soon as he takes it in (obvs not newborn kittens). She has a very interesting article on her website about neutering, which dispels a lot of the romantic ideas of letting a cat have one litter or ‘we’d like our children to see the circle of life’ nonsense. Even the feral strays she releases back to their colonies are neutered. The woman deserves a peerage. She’s unstoppable.

Our rescue cat came to us spayed.

An unneutered tom started hanging round the back garden and our cat started displaying behaviour as if she was in season. One day I heard an almighty noise in the garden and found him on her back, biting her neck.

It turned out she had retained ovarian tissue, which had to be surgically removed through a midline incision.

He comes round now and can’t work out why she’s not interested

Re those asking for my source on anxiety increase after spay; I just believed the behaviourist who told me that cats inclined to be anxious could get more so after early spay.

I can now on searching find evidence for monkeys, dogs and rabbits but not specifically for cats. However as a Peri menopausal human the crash in my hormones has certainly increased my anxiety too 😊

My cat was spayed recently. She was due to be spayed the week after the lockdown and it is only by luck that she did not get pregnant in the interim as she escaped on 2 occasions through second floor windows. I phoned several local vets and none were spaying - there will be lots of lockdown litters, I expect.

@Alsohuman

Cats don't get broody. They don't want to "experience being a mum". Feline sex is pretty brutal and not pleasant for the female on the receiving end

How on earth can you possibly know this?

knowledgenuts.com/2013/10/15/cat-sex-is-effectively-torture/

"Most mammals seem borderline complacent about sex, but if you’ve ever seen cats mate, you might notice that the female seems downright furious about participating. The male bites down on her neck, keeping her from fleeing. That seemingly melodramatic behavior isn’t because she finds boys icky. Cat sex is excruciatingly painful. The cat penis is essentially a horrifying engine of pain covered in a dozen tiny fishhooks.*

Cats aren't humans. I wish people would stop ascribing human emotions to their pets. It's potentially really dangerous.

If they get pregnant it's not just as easy to take them to the vet to have the kittens aborted.
My MIL took in a stray who was pregnant. We took her to the vet and he said it would be dangerous to abort them and to wait until the kittens were born and have them pts.
She boarded at the vets for 3 weeks and had 4 kittens. We hadn't the heart to have them pts and they came back to our house for 12 weeks until they went to their new homes. Mummy cat was spayed within 2 weeks of having the kittens.

I feel conflicted about this. Partly I feel like any animal should get the chance at being a mother. Its what nature had in mind and is a key drive for all creatures.

Argh. No. Again, animals are not humans.

"This is a common fallacy – there is no good reason for letting your pet have one litter before she is spayed. Dogs and cats do not form a lifelong bond with their offspring like people do, and do not miss the experience."

www.bluecross.org.uk/pet-advice/neutering

Mating in animals is just a way to continue the species. Cats don't raise families like humans do. We are overrun with cats because humans have interfered and want them as pets - so they are purposefully bred. People letting their cats "have just one litter" are contributing to the millions of cats sitting in shelters, or abandoned to be feral on the streets.

Female cats can have three litters a year, producing around six kittens at a time. Why on earth would you want to contribute to the huge numbers of unwanted cats already in rescue?

It's human selfishness, nothing more. Humans want the experience of raising kittens because it's "cute" or "good for the children". If you care about animal welfare and are not a professional breeder, then you get your pets neutered. If you can't afford the cost, or don't want to neuter them, don't get a pet.

The persistent idea that cats should have a season before being spayed has a lot to answer for. We had the kitten's neutering appointment cancelled because of lockdown. Then she went into season. I'd managed to get all previous cats neutered before their first season so it was an educational experience, to say the least. My god, keeping her in through them all was so, so, so hard. She was desperate to get out.

I have a nine month old puppy, she was due to be spayed in March but due to covid that procedure has had to wait. She is booked in for next week but is now showing signs that she is coming into season. I am dreading the next few weeks as I want her done ASAP so we don't have to worry about her.
We also have a three month old kitten who is booked in for the day she turns four months, the vet can only do it if she is big enough though. She is desperate to get out so it will be much easier when we don't have to worry.

Every cat I have ever had has been neutered. My cat that I have now has been spayed. At first we thought she was a male and a few people actually said oh no need to bother neutering then and I replied if course there's a need. It doesn't matter whether male or female both need doing. She has been spayed, vaccinated and chipped which is good because she refuses to wear a collar!