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.

[quote SimonJT]@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.[/quote]
Like I said, we’ll ask the vet. They’re the expert.

Applauding vanillaandhoney's post. I can't believe the number of posters comparing human parenthood with that of dogs and cats. Bonkers. And selfishly ignorant.

“At first we thought she was a male and a few people actually said oh no need to bother neutering then”

Oh wow ... obviously in part I had my cats neutered because I didn’t want them to go out and impregnate any unseated females they found, but more selfishly cos I didn’t want them wandering for miles, getting into fights, and spending their quality time at home pissing on everything.

They in turn are NOT the product of an escaping female. Their home loving mother was turned out of the house numerous times before she got pregnant, because her owner was of the ‘they need to have one litter’ school of thought. She was spayed very soon after she had the kittens, at least, she was shaved with surgical would visible when I collected my boys.

I know this thread seems to be mainly about cats, but I need my female dog spaying. She's in season now so early and late walks. Not off lead. Does it have to be bang on 3 months to get her done? I've heard that done at the wrong time it can put them in a state of permanent phantom pregnancy 🤷🏻‍♀️

No point trying to reason (or argue) with someone who thinks it's acceptable to let their dog have a litter because they're "sweet" and "cute".

I'd much rather get a puppy from someone who did this because they have a nice dog with a good personality than from some breeder who belongs to the bleeding KC. That organisation has a lot to answer for and a lot of what goes on with the so-called responsible breeders is bad for dogs,

Completely agree. Mine was the runt of the litter and didnt weigh enough to be spayed until she was 9 months old. Got her brother done and kept them both on until she was done. Best thing we could have done. They are 12 now and rarely stray out of our garden.

@Alsohuman Your vet (any vet), won’t be able to answer those questions. As the owner of the dog you should already know the answer to all of those questions about your own dog.

@SonjaMorgan

DC and keeping a cat indoors aren't a good mix. My young DC let our cat out the day before the appointment. Luckily said cat returned and then turned out to be a spayed male (we took in a stray). The vet did say they couldn't extract a penis but I still felt pretty stupid.

I had a cat when I was a kid, it had been to the vet's for first shots and then was in again for a spay. She was on the table with all her belly hair shaved off and they discovered it was a male.

We’ve currently got 3 month old kittens (brother and sister) and my vet won’t neuter them until 6 months!

My dad was a vet. He sprayed every pet we had.

My dd also works in a rescue. They are over run with covid puppies and kittens right now. Bought during covid lockdown and now not wanted.

[quote SimonJT]@Alsohuman Your vet (any vet), won’t be able to answer those questions. As the owner of the dog you should already know the answer to all of those questions about your own dog.[/quote]
If you were as knowledgeable as you purport, you’d know that few Jack Russells are KC registered as it only accepted the breed as eligible a couple of years ago. So your reverence for it isn’t relevant. My only concerns are about my bitch’s health and well being which the vet will address.

@Tomorrowsanewday

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.

Well that vet was talking out of his/her arse.

There may be many who escape... Our cat was climbing the walls wanting to get out so I can well imagine (she luckily was speyed when we got her) .

But there are bad owners too. We had one on our street who despite neighbors speaking to her and RSPCA giving her a voucher for £5 neutering she didn't take her cat for neutering. She ended up moving and left the cat homeless and pregnant on our street. She had one kitten who is still semi feral and adopted by a neighbor (happy with its new owner but won't go near anyone else). But mum cat went on to have another litter. We (group of neighbors) managed to capture her and 4 kittens and she was neutered and returned/released as a stray and kittens taken to RSPCA/rehomed.

Also.... it highlighted how many Tom's were un-neutered and let roam!!! There were gangs of them (who we had never seen before) fighting to get to her, marking all over and scaring the cats who actually lived on the road.

If you were as knowledgeable as you purport, you’d know that few Jack Russells are KC registered as it only accepted the breed as eligible a couple of years ago. So your reverence for it isn’t relevant. My only concerns are about my bitch’s health and well being which the vet will address.

IIRC it was quite controversial, many owners and breeders didn't want anything to do with the KC.

I think a lot of new owners underestimate the lengths a female in heat will go to, I know I did!
My ragdoll queen currently has 2x 6-week old kittens that she had a good bit younger than planned because her and our male ragdoll are clearly a lot sneakier than we ever imagined

I do not think GCCF or equivalent breeders are always a better option, while some are amazing others are in it purely for money and I think that it can cause over breeding and actually start causing issues with the breed, this is very apparent in some breeds of dogs compared to say 10 years a go.

I am not planning on becoming a breeder as such, however, my queen has produced gorgeous kittens and been a natural at the whole pregnancy and birth, so I may allow her one more litter next year and then get her spayed. But I do it with the knowledge that ragdolls are a well sought after breed that people go out of their way to buy (like I did) so I doubt my kittens are taking a home away from a rescue cat as the owners do not want a normal moggy in the first place

@Gamble66

The natural outcome of everyone spaying thier cats would no more cats except maybe expensive pedigree cats?

No, because it's estimated that there are more stray/feral cats in the UK than there are owned cats. We are so far away from a situation where there aren't enough cats to meet demand that even if every currently owned cat in the UK were neutered, there would still be too many kittens being born. Without charities taking in strays and trapping/neutering feral colonies, the UK would resemble Greece or Turkey or Albania (or just about anywhere else outside Northern Europe), with hoards of starving strays roaming the streets.

@Alsohuman It won’t let me quote for some reason.

I’m well aware that JRTs are a fairly new addition, it doesn’t however excuse irresponsible breeding from now on, as JRTs have been recognised for four years there shouldn’t be any unregistered bitches going to stud. If you were planning to breed her you would have already had eye screening and the appropriate dna tests for certain high risk conditions (3 in the case of JRTs) and you would be getting yourself KC registered, have a KC registered mentor. You should also be making sure the stud is fully health tested and KC registered as well, otherwise you are risking ill puppies. People who don’t bother doing this are back yard breeders.

JRTs were a breed I was considering when I was deciding which sort of dog would suit my family. There were a great deal of KC registered breeders when I was looking in late 2018. The Barker-Bells in the West Mids are good and KC assured experienced breeders, I’m not sure if they send any of their boys to stud though.

I agree. And I also think people shouldn’t breed their dogs. They do it for money but say it’s for other reasons I hate it. They should ban breeding till all the unwanted ones in kennels sitting there sad have a home

@Fairyliz

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.

They are in deprived, urban areas. I can well believe that kittens are few and far between in middle class areas, but not in London, Leicester, Harrow, Liverpool, Cardiff, Birmingham etc etc.

I was in the office of our East London rescue this morning - just for a couple of hours. In that time we had three calls about stray/feral mother cats with litters of kittens in gardens, another call about a heavily pregnant stray, and numerous calls from people wanting to give us their kittens that they couldn't home. That was in a couple of hours.

Tomorrow I'm going to trap two mother cats with a litter of kittens each in a garden. The other two rescue workers will be doing similar. However much we do there are still jobs we just can't get to because of lack of manpower, space, vets, money. There isn't a street in East London that I drive down where I don't think 'we've dealt with a colony in that block of gardens'. And all these cats in East London are pregnant and giving birth despite the huge effort we put into taking in strays/doing free neutering for people who can't afford it/trapping and neutering ferals. It feels like just fire-fighting - we never seem to make progress.

The situation is truly overwhelming and it never seems to improve. I keep hoping that the message will get out there eventually, but it really doesn't seem to. For lots of people neutering doesn't even occur to them, others are resistant, and others just think it's too much effort to organise and some, as above, think it's fine as they can find homes for their kittens. It's so dispiriting and depressing

There are occasional mistakes. A friend had an indoor cat and someone let their Tom cat out and it came through her cat flap and DTD!

(Cat flap was left over from previous occupants and couldn't be opened from inside - or outside, she thought!!)

YANBU! Neuter neuter! I work in rescue abroad and the avalanche of unwanted animals is horrendous.

@TimeWastingButFun

There are occasional mistakes. A friend had an indoor cat and someone let their Tom cat out and it came through her cat flap and DTD!

That's not a mistake - it's completely your friend's fault. All cats, even indoor ones, should be neutered. For starters, a determined cat in heat can get out of almost anything and equally determined toms can get in.

Also unspayed indoor cats keep coming into heat, as they don't become pregnant and it messes with their hormones and seems to send them psychotic after two or three years.

That was no mistake - that was neglect.

I despair of the "accidental" pregnancies excuse too. I volunteer at CP (well until lockdown happened) and hear various stories from the staff so nothing surprises me. I also despair of the owners of unneutered toms (of which there are several around here) ad they don't realise they're adding to the problem!
I realise vets were ordered to stop non urgent surgeries earlier in lockdown but most vets have been neutering for a while now so no excuses.
Kittens aren't always neutered when they're homed. The vets my CP centre uses neuter at 4 months, adopters get a neutering voucher. Some vets will neuter younger but this vets say the op is harder (this is what I'm told). If there's a kitten in who is almost big enough often the centre will keep them for another couple of weeks get them neutered then homed. People have been refused kittens as they want a litter from their female.
The saddest story I heard was a young cat who had kittens but was so badly injured and ill from the birth had to be PTS. This is why only one litter is not ok.

[quote SimonJT]@Alsohuman It won’t let me quote for some reason.

I’m well aware that JRTs are a fairly new addition, it doesn’t however excuse irresponsible breeding from now on, as JRTs have been recognised for four years there shouldn’t be any unregistered bitches going to stud. If you were planning to breed her you would have already had eye screening and the appropriate dna tests for certain high risk conditions (3 in the case of JRTs) and you would be getting yourself KC registered, have a KC registered mentor. You should also be making sure the stud is fully health tested and KC registered as well, otherwise you are risking ill puppies. People who don’t bother doing this are back yard breeders.

JRTs were a breed I was considering when I was deciding which sort of dog would suit my family. There were a great deal of KC registered breeders when I was looking in late 2018. The Barker-Bells in the West Mids are good and KC assured experienced breeders, I’m not sure if they send any of their boys to stud though.[/quote]
There is no laws that owners of JRTs had to register their dogs. Many did not as they did not want the problems that come from being a KC breed. There are quite a few breeds that have resisted becoming KC registered, or portions of which have. Particularly people interested in working dogs, or small breeds which are likely to die out once subject to KC rules, or dog like the JRT which are variable in appearance and don't want to become homogenised.

I'm not sure where you got the idea that registered KC breeders are more responsible or to be preferred - that's a view that is self-interestedly promoted by the KC. You can see where their approach to dog breeding and health has led at any dog show.