# Disadvantages to spaying/neutering a dog/cat? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 16, 2003, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disadvantages-to-spaying-neutering-a-dog-cat/189007 "2003-07-16T23:24:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Jake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jake)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2012, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disadvantages-to-spaying-neutering-a-dog-cat/189007/41 "2012-06-24T19:42:52Z")
> [@Lissa](#): > > My spayed female dog has developed a couple of minor problems. She started “dribbling” and had to be put on hormones, and she’s developed a fatty growth on her chest, which the vet says isn’t a serious issue unless it starts causing her pain. Again, though, these complaints are easily dealt with and don’t outweigh the benefits of spaying her. I had my dog spayed and she had urinary problems. Dribbled like Magic Johnson. Of course I kept her for a long and happy life. ---
**Author:** ![Kamrusepas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/8c91f0/32.png) [@Kamrusepas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamrusepas)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2012, 8:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disadvantages-to-spaying-neutering-a-dog-cat/189007/42 "2012-06-25T08:59:50Z")
> [@Jaypool\_the\_Great](#): > > :mad: This is not the way. Neutering cats is not the way to go if your protecting your male cat from roaming all the same. Spaying male cats does not make them lazier if the male cat himself has a very crazy personality, I agree, but spaying them but being obvious about it to your cat may make it angry with you. My grandma had a cat and it was neutered, it does not make any difference to whether it is aggressive or not because that cat was born to be crazy. It scratched me, my dad, my grandma, my whole family. I was looking at this cat for nine years, and it was neutered. And it was hyperactive. It was aggressive. Conclusion: If your cat was born to be hyperactive, spaying it will make no difference. I may be young, but I have spent my whole life with cats and I know they don’t probably like it. This cat R.I.P in 2008, and I had spent my time in these 4 years in cat shelters to help them. They were all spayed, and it makes no difference, because they are all unwanted. 40 Freaking cats were spayed and abandoned in ONE street. I ask you, HOW THE HELL DOES SPAYING MAKE A DIFFERENCE? You think that your cat may get run over by a car if you don’t spay it, but if you had a child with a mental disorder and ignorant to world dangers, you would NEVER dream of spaying an innocent child. Same with cats. They are just entering puberty, I wouldn’t like MY life to be ruined just to shut me up from looking for a boyfriend. Put your feet in their paws, wont you? Stop being so selfish, wont you? This is all I have to say. As someone who “works” with the local animal rescue, reading this is horrible. Please don’t spread your ignorance. Spaying and neutering makes a HUGE difference in controlling the amount of homeless animals. ETA: I also have to add that animals don’t really want sex. They just do it because of their instinct. When you spay or neuter them, it takes away the instinct to reproduce (or at least suppresses it. Someone correct me if I got this wrong, I’m not a vet). They don’t miss it. They just don’t feel it anymore. You cannot compare human sexual behavior to animals. ---
**Author:** ![boozilu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4da419/32.png) [@boozilu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/boozilu)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2012, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disadvantages-to-spaying-neutering-a-dog-cat/189007/43 "2012-06-25T11:54:43Z")
Our rescue dog is currently in heat (for medical reasons we cannot get her spayed for a few more months), and let me just say that I would take urinary dribbling over what we have today any day! ---
**Author:** ![Sister\_Vigilante](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@Sister\_Vigilante](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sister_Vigilante)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2012, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disadvantages-to-spaying-neutering-a-dog-cat/189007/44 "2012-06-25T15:23:40Z")
Spaying makes a difference because it means those 40 cats won’t each have 8 kittens 4 months from now, making the grand total 320 cats. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2012, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disadvantages-to-spaying-neutering-a-dog-cat/189007/45 "2012-06-25T17:24:34Z")
The Neville kitties are spayed. From the amount of purring they do, I don’t think they believe this has ruined their lives. Luna in particular seems to like her life the way it is. I somehow don’t see her wanting to change everything so she could have kittens. We’re going through preparing to have our baby. It’s a lot of work and we know our lives will change a great deal as a result. I know the preparation is somewhat less work for cats (they don’t have to buy car seats), but I’m sure their lives change. I don’t see Luna liking that. Reversible birth control isn’t really an option for pets, except maybe something like Depo-Provera or Norplant. I wouldn’t like to try to give my cats birth control pills every day, and I doubt anyone would want to try putting condoms on male cats or dogs. Humans who don’t want to have too many kids have those options. Humans have sex even when women are not fertile. Cats and dogs don’t do that. If they had sex because they enjoy it, they would probably also have sex when the females are not in heat. > [@Jaypool\_the\_Great](#): > > :mad: This is not the way. Neutering cats is not the way to go if your protecting your male cat from roaming all the same. Spaying male cats does not make them lazier if the male cat himself has a very crazy personality, I agree, but spaying them but being obvious about it to your cat may make it angry with you. Spaying a male cat would be… er… difficult. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2012, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disadvantages-to-spaying-neutering-a-dog-cat/189007/46 "2012-06-25T17:24:42Z")
> [@Jaypool\_the\_Great](#): > > :mad: This is not the way. Neutering cats is not the way to go if your protecting your male cat from roaming all the same. Spaying male cats does not make them lazier if the male cat himself has a very crazy personality, I agree, but spaying them but being obvious about it to your cat may make it angry with you. My grandma had a cat and it was neutered, it does not make any difference to whether it is aggressive or not because that cat was born to be crazy. It scratched me, my dad, my grandma, my whole family. I was looking at this cat for nine years, and it was neutered. And it was hyperactive. It was aggressive. Conclusion: If your cat was born to be hyperactive, spaying it will make no difference. I may be young, but I have spent my whole life with cats and I know they don’t probably like it. This cat R.I.P in 2008, and I had spent my time in these 4 years in cat shelters to help them. They were all spayed, and it makes no difference, because they are all unwanted. 40 Freaking cats were spayed and abandoned in ONE street. I ask you, HOW THE HELL DOES SPAYING MAKE A DIFFERENCE? You think that your cat may get run over by a car if you don’t spay it, but if you had a child with a mental disorder and ignorant to world dangers, you would NEVER dream of spaying an innocent child. Same with cats. They are just entering puberty, I wouldn’t like MY life to be ruined just to shut me up from looking for a boyfriend. Put your feet in their paws, wont you? Stop being so selfish, wont you? This is all I have to say. Just because you’re personally uncomfortable about castration doesn’t mean you should uh…whatever the above is…rant. The part about 40 cats spayed and abandoned in the street sounds like you’re misinterpreting or misrepresenting a [Trap-Neuter-Return program](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trap-Neuter-Return). > [@Jaypool\_the\_Great](#): > > Its not fair. The human population far exceeds the cat population. Besides, there are probably much more human orphans than cats in cat shelters out there. [Estimates](http://www.google.com/#hl=en&safe=active&sclient=psy-ab&q=estimated+us+feral+cat+population+2012&oq=estimated+us+feral+cat+population+2012&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_l=serp.3...24414.25756.0.26764.3.3.0.0.0.1.357.466.0j1j0j1.2.0...0.0.s3Ha-EmkxP4&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=24bd4001b4cd61d4&biw=1280&bih=860) for stray and feral cat population in the US range from 50 million to 70 million. Comparable orphan statistics seem to be harder to come by, but [this government .pdf from 2004](http://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/p70-114.pdf) seems to say maybe 4 million (it says 73.2 million children, of which 6% live with no parent) but that presumably includes children without parents due to abandonment and imprisonment, not necessarily all orphaned. So although the numbers are sketchy, it looks like this claim isn’t likely to be true. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2012, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disadvantages-to-spaying-neutering-a-dog-cat/189007/47 "2012-06-25T17:26:21Z")
> [@Anne\_Neville](#): > > I doubt anyone would want to try putting condoms on male cats or dogs. If you thought _belling_ the cat was tough…geez! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disadvantages-to-spaying-neutering-a-dog-cat/189007.md?page=2)