Have you gotten your pet spayed or neutered yet? If not, then this blog is for you!
February 22nd is World Spay Day. We encourage you to talk to your veterinarian and discuss getting your pet spayed or neutered as soon as you can.
We also want to share with you reasons why it’s a good idea to spay or neuter your pet. Here are five reasons we hope will encourage you to consider spaying or neutering your pet.
Prevent Overpopulation
If your pet is spayed or neutered, you’ll help reduce pet overpopulation.
When people refuse to spay and neuter their pets, the chances of more unwanted animals being born increases. Spaying and neutering helps prevent an overpopulation of animals ending up in shelters or wandering in the streets.
Reduce Heat in Females and Roaming Behaviors in Males
Female cats and dogs go through a “heat cycle” in which they are trying to let their male counterparts know they want to mate. This cycle usually involves urinating more than you would like and in places you don’t like.
If you spay your female pet, they won’t have these heat cycles that attract male pets. In doing so, you also reduce roaming behaviors in male cats and dogs who are often drawn to female pets while they are in heat.
Keep Communities Safe
Spaying and neutering also helps keep communities safer because a reduction in overpopulation means fewer stray cats and dogs wandering in neighborhoods.
Reducing the number of strays in communities through spaying and neutering will help keep children safe and reduce pet-related injuries and deaths.
Ensuring community pets are spayed and neutered will also help prevent them from adding to the overpopulation issue and creating more unwanted litters.
Prevent Unwanted Litters
As we mentioned before, spaying and neutering will prevent pets from creating more unwanted litters. When cats and dogs aren’t spayed and neutered, they’re free to keep reproducing.
People tend to want to give these litters away, and shelters eventually become full from pets that become strays or are later not wanted by their owners.
Keep More Pets Out of Shelters
The more pets left to wander and the more unwanted litters that come about will mean more possibilities of animals landing in shelters.
As you know, we’re a no-kill shelter. However, some shelters have not adopted this same idea for pets that come in their shelter. This means that some shelters are still euthanizing pets when they are in the shelter for too long and there is no longer room for them.
We can prevent this from happening by encouraging pet owners and communities to help spay and neuter as many animals as possible. More pets can be saved from doing this!
If this encouraged you to consider spaying or neutering your pet, be sure to reach out to your veterinarian for more information about this process.