I know someone who volunteers at the Humane Society, and if you adopt a female cat from them it’s about $90 for shots, spaying, etc.
Every cat I’ve come to live with has already been spayed/neutered before I got it.
My best friend back east (Northern Virginia) adopted two sister kittens in the last year. I was talking to her over the weekend and she said she still hasn’t had them spayed. I asked why not. Because it’s $500 a pop.
WTH? I had no idea. If you get your kitten from a private party and it needs spaying the full price is $500. Wow.
I told her I’d heard in some places they’ll spay them for free but she said “yeah, if you’re poor.” My friend and her husband aren’t poor. They make pretty good money between them but live in an area which has become pretty expensive over the last ten years or so. So, they can’t afford to have the cats spayed.
Geez, I thought you could have a human spayed for 500 bucks! (I kid, I kid)
Our vet will do it for $55, plus $17.60 for the pre-op examination. Toss in shots and such, and we got the outdoor kitties fixed at about $90 each. $15 less for the males.
If they can’t afford to have the cats spayed, then they can’t afford to have a cat. “But the cat stays inside.” Bull, cats can get out!
I’m always a little shocked at the rates some people quote for vet care. But then again, I’m out in the sticks and our vet runs a fairly low-tech country office. I remember we had three male kittens neutered for about $180. Spaying our female dogs has run on the order of $100 or so. (It’s been several years since we had anybody fixed, so my memory is foggy.)
$500 sounds like a screw job, though. Have they shopped around?
She’s a pretty responsible pet owner, and spends a fortune already on regular vet visits and food. She probably spends as much on cat food per month as I spend on human food for myself each month. She’ll get the cats spayed eventually.
I won’t defend her spending habits though. She could save up $500 if she wanted to. She does budgeting for a living too. Heh. She admits she’s great at budgeting other people’s money, just not her own.
The main thing though is $500 sounds like a lot. She swears she’s shopped around the whole area. I’m sure she wouldn’t take her cats to the cheapest discount vet she could find.
She’s fully capable of keeping the cats indoors while in heat. AFAIK, they’re primarily indoor already.
I had a cat that went into heat before I could get her spayed - she was indoor only, but the racket she made caused me to make an appointment to get her fixed ASAP so I could get some sleep. I don’t know how anyone can handle that noise!
My SO has a co worker who adopted a cat from the HS over this last weekend - a neutered 8w/o kitten was $200. Girls cost more.
I had my kitten spayed about a year and a half ago and IIRC it was $150 with shots and all.
Yikes! My old roommate got a 1.5 year old girl (already fixed, still has the stitches until Friday) from the Anti-Cruelty Society in Chicago on Saturday for $55. They even threw in some food.
My first thought to the OP was to drop the cats off at the humane society as unwanted, wait until they get them fixed, and then adopt them for $90 each
I’m pretty sure your friend is exaggerating so she won’t have to admit the truth: she just doesn’t want to spend the money.
My girl cat’s spaying was part of a package deal; $85 for that and her first round of shots. The boy was the same, but the shelter where I got them charges the same $85 for every cat. The vet school here will neuter boys for $10. Spaying is closer to $60-100, depending on where you go.
I just don’t believe that anyone charges $500 for a spay. I think the OP’s friend misunderstood.
The entire appointment here (spay, anesthesia, meds, exam, maybe a shot or two, etc.) from a private vet is about $100-$130. There are dozens of places to get low-cost (about $60) spay/neuter, and that’s for the surgery, microchip, rabies, distemper, ear cleaning, nail cutting, and full exam. Males are usually a little cheaper than females (whether full-cost or low-cost.)
I just don’t believe $500. Maybe it’s true but I doubt it.
That’s four that took 30 seconds of googling. I am positive none of them charge anything close to $500. There are programs for ferals, house pets, and for low-income. Many do not require any verification of income at all so it’s not limited to “poor” people.
You (meaning whoever) can also go to www.friendsofanimals.org - type in ZIP code; get a list of vets who accept the Friends of Animals low-cost spay/neuter certificate. You need to book these in advance usually, as understandably the discount appointments go quickly.
Quoting for the truth! (sorry I could not help it)
$500 is a huge rip off.
I have went through Friends of Animals as well until I found an even cheaper program that runs a branch out of my city.
$28 for males, $34 for females which also includes reduced vacinations of $10 per shot.
Both programs, Friends of Animals and my local branch do not care what your income is.
I applaud her for adopting but your friend needs to do more research. Even if she is keeping the cats in, which is a responsible move, she also needs to understand that is better for the cats over all health to get them spayed as soon as possible.
The No. VA SPCA runs a low-cost spay neuter clinic, which is available to all. here’s a whole list of lost-cost programs. I don’t know where your friend lives.Spay-neuter clinics of VA.
There are plenty of clinics that just do vaccines/spay-neuter. It may seem a little like a factory just for that, but it’s good to support these programs, I think. I got my newest dog Jake (100 lb doberman) vaccinated, neutered and microchipped at the local clinic for a total of $114.
Wow, that’s incredible. I got my cats at the shelter for like 50 bucks, which covers shots, microchip, worming, spay/neuter, a bag of food, a cat toy - I think the cats themselves must have cost negative money! I know the Humane Society spays and neuters for something around $75? Something like that. And yet the girl I work with with the enormous dog hasn’t gotten around to it after, what, five years?
Hm. I suspected there’s something fishy about that $500 figure. I’ve been friends with this woman for almost twenty years now. I knew her original two cats the whole time, and cat-sat for them more than a few times. We originally met in Germany. I know how she cares for her pets. The original two led happy, healthy lives but eventually succumbed to old age, and its complications. That’s why she got the two new kittens, after a grief period.
She gets infuriated with neighbors who don’t spay their cats and let them roam, and she hates the numbers of pets which get put down every year due to irresponsible pet owners.
So something’s going on.
I’m going to go over all the helpful links you all have provided (thank you!), then send her a list of information and see what she says.
I wonder where she adopted them. Here, you can’t adopt a cat from the animal shelters or any of the pet rescue organizations without having it spayed/neutered first.
Her first two cats were sick and diseased strays she found when she was in the military. The male was a Ragdoll and the female was Siamese. She nursed them back to health and they were great cats for 15+ years. About five years ago she took in another stray male tabby.
The latest two she got from a private party. She was still grieving the loss of the original two and it was actually her husband who found the latest two kittens. I think they might be Ragdolls. Or part Siamese. I don’t remember now. It was a private party and I don’t know if it was a breeder or just someone who ended up with kittens. I think it was a breeder, but the kittens weren’t properly socialized to humans so my friend has spent months and months slowly getting them socialized.
Who knows? Maybe this is a “can’t cut the umbilical cord” issue, and she just doesn’t want to traumatize them.
Well she sounds like she isn’t a dipsy doodle who doesn’t really want to get her cats spayed and is using “$500” as an excuse, but she had to have gotten some wrong information somewhere! Maybe she heard the vet wrong somehow? Or could there be some other medical problem that the vet thinks it’s best to take care of all at the same time and that is upping the cost?
Or could she have meant $500 for both, total? But that’s still pretty damn expensive at $250 apiece. Even that can’t be just for a spay and the attendant exams, meds, etc.
