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Anonymous
Hey /an/, I'm going to have to have my cats spayed. I have to ask...

Why do they have to remove the ovaries and uterus/testicles? Why can't they just snip or tie a cord like they do with humans?

I've been told there are other methods, but none of the vets I've contacted seem to know of their existance.

When a man loses his testicles, it's not uncommon for him to start producing estrogen, and even grow breasts. And I've seen in the past spayed females trying to mount female cats in heat. Will I in effect be giving my cats a sex change?

What personality changes should I expect? I've read it's complete BS to claim they'll stop marking or become less aggressive.
>> Anonymous
The only lasting effect from spaying your cat will be that when it does the deed, it no longer gets pregnant, thus it cant draw kitten-support, and will have to curtail the catnip parties due to a lack of funds.
>> Anonymous
Many zoos do use a vasectomy-type procedure, but there are more reasons to remove the gonads than merely procreation. Many hormones are influenced by the gonads, several of which can make your pet more moody or shorten their life-span.
>> Anonymous
not to mention growl and jump on your face if they feel it tickles thier pleasure center.
>> Anonymous
>>328933
Removing the testicles/ovaries also prevents cancer of those organs as well.
>> Anonymous
No, spaying does not cause an animal to change sex. From what we know on both human and animal studies, sex of the brain is fixed by the time a mammal reaches sexual maturity. If you have a lesbian cat, you have a lesbian cat, no matter what you do with its gonads.

As for personality changes, the only things I've noticed for my cats was that they stopped spraying and trying to make kittens (and all the annoying behavior associated to that). That's it.
>> Anonymous
>>328974
How long did recovery take?

How big was the scar?

Did they shave it?
>> Anonymous
>>328974
>>lesbian
>>its gonads

what
>> Anonymous
>>328991
Ah also, don't let them lick the incision too much either if you can help it. One of my cats has a little bald spot that won't go away because she licked the incision site a bit too much.
>> Anonymous
My vet did a vasectomy. My cat was fine the day I got him back...which I believe was a same day procedure.
>> Anonymous
>>328999
learn2biology.

"the gonads in females are the ovaries."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonad
>> Anonymous
>>328934
LOL
>> Anonymous
The only side effect it had on my cat is that she stopped walking around the house wailing at all hours of the night and stopped trying to rub her vagina against everything in the house.
>> Anonymous
Hopefully OP isn't one of those people who keeps a cat un-fixed for too long, because some of that learned behavior may not go away if they've gotten used to doing it. Good luck in any case.
>> Anonymous
My sister once brought home a dog. It belonged to a vet but he died, I don't know how she knew him. The dog was obviously spayed, you could see the scar. One day her vulva swelled up and she wouldn't stop licking herself. She started backing into furniture and being really annoying.
We freaked out and took her to the vet thinking stray dogs would start packing up on our front yard. The vet told us that the old owner, being a vet himself, probably left her ovaries intact to keep her from gaining weight or loosing energy. In my opinion that would have been much better than a dog that for all intents and purposes keeps going into heat.
>> Anonymous
If a male is neutered in his early life, does he not reach full size that he would otherwise?
>> Anonymous
>>328991

Recovery will depend on how stressed the cat is. When we brought our female home, she was freaked out. She had just been pregnant before we got her spayed (we didn't know), so not only did that part of her sense of self change, but she also underwent a major surgery at a late age, which was an epic stresser for her. It took her about 2.5 weeks for her to start acting normal, and her hair never really grew back. Scar wasn't too big.
>> Anonymous
>>329285

They'll reach full size. My male has a pretty high voice, and he got neutered at a young age (although he was sexually mature, wut). Don't know if that was an effect of his nuts being removed.
>> Anonymous
>>329294
Just because your cats are spayed/neutered doesn't mean they keep their high kitten voice. All meows are different, spayed/neutered or not.
>> Anonymous
I adopted a young gray cat from a neighbor like 5 years ago. He was the most aggressive cat in the world - didn't want to be pet, just wanted food. Scratched, bit, snarled, pissed all over everything. It was out of control. So after like a year of that BS with him, we got him neutered and it was like a blessing.

Since then, he uses his litterbox, doesn't bite (too much..), doesn't scratch anymore. It's amazing. We had no idea how much this would improve his badness. but it did =]
>> Anonymous
I don't know about cats, but it has been proven in horses that if they are gelded (neutered) before they finish their growth they will actually grow larger then if they had been left intact. Apparently testosterone causes growth plates to close early.
>> Anonymous
My cat almost died from an infected uterus and she is an indoor cat :S I wouldnt take any chances. As far as changes, mine just got a tad lazyier (if you can beleive that) and gainned a lil weight.
>> Anonymous
If it's male it's sometimes better to get them neutered before sexual maturity. Some males will continue to spray after being neutered, there is -less- of a chance of them spraying if neutered before they reach sexual maturity. They will tend not to have the masculine face though. Spaying and neutering reduces risks for cancers and a myriad of health problems so it's totally worth it for that reason alone, besides not adding to the overpopulation.
>> Anonymous
The only other difference not mentioned yet is a neutered male won't get "tomcat jowls."
>> Anonymous
the whole point is to get rid of the hormones... cats with balls get horny and into fights with other cats all the time. if you leave the balls intact, your cat is going to come home bloody and wounded, dawn after dawn. as a fellow male i was hesitant about neutering my first male cat, but you're basically letting your cat kill himself if you don't take his balls off.

actually, so do i (get horny and fight with other horny males, that is) so i did once seriously consider neutering myself but didn't quite find the nerve. i wasn't quite sure where to go either, the local vet is quite a looker and if i asked her to do it, well, she might say "what a shame" and I would hoarsely reply "please doc...oblige me, one last time, for the memories" and she would slide the sign "the vet is IN" to "OUT" and then i would be doing some IN/OUT sliding myself, right there on the operating table, and as you can see my horny imagination runs wild, which is why neutering is good, understand??