I spend most of my time helping pets in shelters get adopted. When you spend as much time around rescue dogs as I do you, realize that spaying and neutering is an important part of rescue work. You see, I am on the reactive side of the rescue equation when I take pictures of animals who need homes. Neutering is on the positive side of the equation. When you spay or neuter a pet, it reduces the likelihood of unwanted animals landing in the shelters. Which of course, makes the shelter pet population more manageable.
Sterilized animals live longer, happier lives. Spaying eliminates the stress and discomfort that females endure during heat periods, does away with the risk of uterine cancer, while reduceing the risk of mammary cancer.
Spaying and neutering reduces or eliminates behaviors you don’t want, such as aggression and urine marking. Neutered males are less likely to roam, fight, or mark their territory with urine. While also preventing testicular cancer; it also reduces the risk of prostate cancer.
Altered animals are less likely to contract deadly, contagious diseases, such as feline AIDS and feline leukemia, that are spread through bodily fluids.
In exchange, your companions will likely become more interested in you (rather than finding a mate) and will still protect your family.
Male animals contribute to the companion animal overpopulation crisis even more than females do. Just one unsterilized male animal can impregnate dozens of females, creating dozens upon dozens of unwanted offspring. Neutering also reduces unwanted behaviors such as biting.
It’s best to spay animals before they reach sexual maturity to reap the full health benefits. Spaying your female companion animal before her first heat cycle means she will have one-seventh the risk of developing mammary cancer. Spaying also eliminates female animals’ risk of diseases and cancers of the ovaries and uterus, which are often life-threatening and require expensive surgery and treatment.
Please considering neutering and spaying your pet reaping the benefits for both you and your pet.