Spayed and Neutered

NOTE: This post is about the process involved in getting an adopted pet spayed or neutered in our town. It is not about the effect of the surgery on an animal.

We dropped our new handful off at the vet today to get spayed. Getting her into her carrier was traumatic, getting her out of the carrier at the vet office was traumatic, and being left to have a major surgery all alone is traumatic.

Here's my issue: in this town, the SPCA does not have a mandatory spay/neuter rule. So, when you pick up a pet from their facilities, or a satellite facility (like we did), you do not know if the pet is spayed or neutered. Basically, the pet has the trauma of living in a shelter's small cages, rooms, or whatever for days, weeks, months, then gets the trauma of being taken to a brand new home with new people it needs to learn about and get along with (and possibly children), and then it has to have the trauma of shots, surgery, and recovery shortly thereafter.

In the end, I think this is too much trauma for the animal to bear repeatedly over a short period of time. If, however, the SPCA had a rule that any pet brought into its facility was spayed/neutered and given its first round of shots (and they recuperated the costs when the pet was adopted), then the major traumas would all be out of the way all at once. Yes, it means that the SPCA would be constantly running a deficit in this area, as not every pet will get adopted or will be adopted quickly, but you KNOW that EVERY cat that has been to the SPCA is a) relatively healthy (due to shots being given) and b) spayed or neutered.

Alternately, when you want to adopt a pet, the adoption location arranges the pet to be sent to a vet for its shots and spay/neuter via the SPCA. This is performed by one of the in-network vets, they keep the animal overnight to make sure everything is okay, and then the facility (whether SPCA or satellite) keeps the pet for a couple of days to ensure it is eating and drinking. When you come to pick the pet up and take it to its "furever" home, you are seen only as the white knight and your and its only job from that point forward for the next year (until booster shots are needed) is to bond and love one another.

As it is, our little Sapphire is now associating us with going to the vet, getting shots, and now major, traumatic surgery. She is scared of her carrier case and, when we try to put her in it, she freaks out and becomes violent. All of this coming just one month after entering our home and the trauma of learning the rules here, leaving its previous environment, and learning to get along with our existing pet.

I think I've proposed at least two better, less traumatic ways to deal with this.