Myth: Spayed and Neutered pets become fat and lazy.
Fact: This is untrue! Pets gain weight from overfeeding and lack of exercise. If you provide exercise and monitor/control your pet's food intake, then excess weight gain can be avoided.
Myth: Spaying or neutering your pet will change his/her behavior and personality.
Fact: The overall behavioral traits and personality characteristics of your pet are established well before your pet reaches or achieves sexual maturity. The spay or neuter surgery should not alter these established traits. Your pet's caring and loving behavior will remain.
Any slight changes in behavior are typically positive. Spaying or neutering will reduce your pet's desire to breed, creating a calming effect. Your pet will tend to stop roaming and fighting and will lose its desire to mark territorial boundaries with urine.
Myth: A female dog or cat should have litter before being spayed.
Fact: It has been medically proven that spaying female dogs and cats prior to their first heat cycle drastically decreases their chances of developing mammary tumors or uterine infections and disease. Allowing your female dog or cat go through a heat cycle or have a litter increases the risk of potentially fatal illness.
Jane Animal Hospital recommends all puppies and kittens be spayed or neutered at about 6 months of age, before they reach sexual maturity.
Myth: A neutered male dog or cat will feel like less of a male.
Fact: Your male dog or cat does not have any concept of sexual identity or ego. Performing the neuter surgery on your male pet will not change already established personality traits. Your pet will not experience any type of emotional or identity distress.
Myth: There are no health benefits to the spay or neuter surgery.
Fact: False!! Having the spay or neuter procedure performed on your pet will provide for him/her a multitude of health benefits that will help them live longer, healthier, and happier lives.
Myth: The Spay and Neuter surgery is dangerous and painful for pets.
Fact: Spays and neuters are the most common surgical procedures performed in veterinary hospitals. With today's advances in medicine, surgical technique, surgical equipment, and pain management, your pet will undergo surgery safely and comfortably. The benefits of having your pet spayed or neutered greatly outweigh the minimal risk of anesthesia. At Jane Animal Hospital, we are proud to offer your pet current advances in surgical technique, equipment, and pain management.
Myth: Good homes will be found for all potential puppies and kittens.
Fact: It is possible that you may be able to find homes for your pet's litter. But you cannot guarantee that those kittens or puppies will not produce offspring of their own. Un-spayed and un-neutered pets and their offspring can produce thousands of progeny over the course of a few years (i.e. each animal produces a litter). The problem with pet overpopulation is then continued, one litter at a time.
