Obligatory follow up since you are all amazing
Meet Nye!
I want to start this post out with a thanks to all of you from this community for the reassurance and advice, had I never came here I would have never met this wonderful kitten!
We adopted her at an estimated age of over a year. We confirmed with the provided documentation that she had all the necessary vaccinations and were assured all of their adoptees were spayed. Since then she has slipped right into routine, we’re coming up on three weeks now and from what I consider she’s part of the family now.
Actual question
Today she was exhibiting very interesting behavior, meowing constantly, rolling around and rubbing up against everything, and sticking her butt up in the air. We reached out to the humane society we had adopted her from and they marked her as spayed but upon further inspection noted her intake didn’t state if she had been already or not.
Now for the question, to spay or not? She is handling it well, exceptionally affectionate and a bit needy but okay otherwise, at least relative to what we hear from others. She’s an indoor cat, so pregnancy isn’t a concern, but apart from that what are the reasons for or against taking her to be spayed?
There is never a reason to not get her spayed. It helps with behavior and it reduces her chances of certain types of cancer as well as prevents her from having any kittens which the world does not need.
Spaying her will settle her hormones, give her one less reason to try to get out, and will stop any neighborhood tomcats from trying to get in! It’s very much worth doing. Afterwards she may need to wear a onesie for a little while to keep her from licking her stitches, you know how raspy kitty tongues can be.
If she’s not spayed, there is a very high chance that she will find a way outdoors, and pregnancy is very draining on their bodies. They generally have quite a few kittens because so many of them don’t survive. My most recent foster momma came to me practically skin & bones, and we lost 2 out of 5 kittens. Kittens are super fragile, and you can do everything right, but still lose them. And if they do survive, the shelters are already overflowing with homeless cats, so many get euthanized purely due to lack of space.
I found that our cat seemed more calm or at ease after she was spayed. I’m not a cat psychologist. From what I observed it seemed better for the cat to be spayed. She had also shown signs of the frisky behaviour. I’d be curious to know from people who didn’t spay their cats if that behaviour mellowed out, and how quickly.
