The doctors and staff of Kulshan Veterinary Hospital strongly recommend that your pet be spayed or neutered unless you have specific plans for breeding your pet. Every year thousands of unwanted pets are euthanized for lack of good homes and loving families. Our goal is to assist in reducing this number by eliminating unwanted and unplanned pregnancies. Even planned pregnancies can result in unwanted pets when the market is oversaturated and/or demand for a particular breed wanes.

We recommend spaying or neutering between the ages of four and six month. This is typically prior to them going into their first heat and maximized the health benefits of the procedure.

Routine spays and neuters are scheduled Monday through Friday and animals can be dropped off the night before surgery or before 9:00 am the day of surgery. If your pet is admitted the day of surgery, it is important that you do not feed them after 8:00 pm the night before to reduce the risks associated with anesthesia. It is alright for your pet to have water up until the time they are admitted for surgery.

When your pet is dropped off, one of our technicians will check your pet in and go over the anesthetic consent form.  The surgery is performed on the morning of the day it is scheduled and your pet will go home the next day. Many veterinarians have choose to send pets home the same day, but we feel it is important to keep them overnight so they can rest undisturbed and be checked out the next morning prior to going home.

Many owners express the desire to have their children experience the joy and fun of a litter of puppies or kittens. Unfortunately, there are times when this joy and excitement is lessened by complications with the pregnancy that lead to an unexpected caesarian section, the potential loss of the family pet and/or having to bottle feed infant newborns every two hours for a few weeks if mom isn’t able to care for them.

Other benefits of spaying and neutering include:

1.       Decrease in undesirable sexual behaviors such as roaming, yowling and bleeding

2.       Decreased urine marking

3.       Decreased aggression/territorial behavior

4.       Less risk of cancer – prostate, testicular, mammary, uterine, ovarian

Some pet owners mention concerns about weight gain following spaying or neutering.  While a lot of pets do gain weight following sterilization surgery, this can be effectively controlled through proper diet and exercise. Without the influence of the sex hormones, pets tend to be less active and have a slower metabolism. To compensate, pet should be fed less and encouraged to exercise more in order to avoid unwanted weight gain.

It is also a myth that female pets should have at least one litter to make them a better pet.

 For more information on spaying or neutering your pet, or to discuss the process in more detail, please contact our office at (360) 354-5095.