Neutering pets is responsible thing to do
My big-hearted daughter and her husband just adopted another dog, a small female mixedbreed named Maisie. The dog was dropped off at her home by a neighbor who purchased it at a flea market, kept it for a few weeks, and then realized she couldn’t manage it. She showed up at my daughter’s door and handed her the dog, which was about a year old, unsprayed and in heat.
The story of Maisie is unfortunately typical.
An irresponsible breeder and someone who buys a dog on an impulse and then gives it up because they can’t deal with it — and the dog is in heat.
This is the kind of story that in our town and in the country frames the conversation about spaying and neutering.
Neutering (the generic term) is the removal of the ovaries and uterus of female dogs and removal of the testicles of male dogs. Both are done surgically under general anesthesia.
Neutering dogs and cats is a crucial tool for reducing the population of unwanted animals. The story of the Santa Fe animal shelter is illustrative of this fact. According to veterinarian Dr. Timothy Murt Bryne, when he began working at the shelter in 1989, the shelter was euthanizing up to 10 animals a day. Controversially at the time, he and other veterinarians instituted the policy of neutering all strays and puppies that came to the shelter before they could be adopted. Now, in 2017, the shelter barely euthanizes five animals a month. (And it is only for aggression or medical issues that those animals are euthanized, never for lack of space or length of stay.)
Twenty-eight years of neutering has made significant impact on the unwanted dog population in Santa Fe.
But what about you and your dog? Should you have him or her neutered? After all, there is research that points to health effects of early neutering of dogs, specifically some growth issues and some types of cancer. On the other hand, neutering also reduces the risk of other cancers.
Then there are the behavioral aspects of unneutered animals. Growing up in a farming community in the 1960s, we had an unneutered female German shepherd (we loved our dogs, but we were not necessarily dog-smart). Our neighbors had an unneutered male, the infamous Little Joe who would find a way into our house anytime Shawnee was in heat. Testosterone drives unneutered male dogs. They can become aggressive, they will become escape artists (especially when there is a female dog somewhere nearby in heat), and they will go through screen doors to get to that same female. Exhibit A: Little Joe.
Female unneutered dogs go into heat that can last up to a month and happens twice a year. During heat, a female dog needs to be isolated from male dogs, otherwise they will get pregnant.
For your dog, it comes down to this. If you are a responsible dog owner, maybe you can delay getting your puppy neutered until they are 6 months old or until the female has gone through two cycles of heat. Maybe you could defer getting your dog neutered at all. But — and it is a very serious caution — it depends on your definition of responsible. Can you absolutely, positively assure that you will not cause a female dog to get pregnant? That is high bar when you are dealing with testosterone-driven males and females in heat.
Bryne suggested that one alternative was good dog control and a leash.
Here, I beg to differ. I was a 12-year-old skinny kid with an 80-pound female German shepherd on a leash trying to keep her away from Little Joe. It made no difference. The result was 10 puppies.
To sum up, I consider myself now to be a relatively responsible dog owner (with a few noted big slip-ups), but we will continue to have all our dogs neutered. It is just the right thing to do.
The shelters will continue to neuter the animals that come through before they are adopted. That is the ethically correct thing to do.
And about Maisie, my daughter’s new dog? She has an appointment to at the shelter to be neutered next week.