It's World Spay Day!

Do you have an unfixed cat?  At what age can you get your cat spayed or neutered?  What are the benefits to fixing your cat?  The purrfessionals here at the PDX pride will answer your questions!

Happy World Spay Day from all of us!

Rori here!  As the Big Kitty of the household, it is my solemn duty to inform you unspayed or unneutered cats of the blogosphere to get your acts together and schedule your fixing surgeries!  It's an important step in your independence as a cat-of-the-world to get this done!

1.  Spaying and neutering prevents unwanted and/or "surprise" litters.
2.  Spaying before the cat goes into heat for the first time greatly decreases a female cat's risk of breast cancer.  To learn more about breast cancer in cats, please visit our friend Sugar at her website:  Sugar Rub!
3.  Neutering greatly reduces a male cat's "nuisance" behavior, including spraying, yowling, and territorial marking, as well as makes the urine smell less strong.
4.  Spaying and neutering reduces the number of adult cats that are dumped, killed, and given to shelters.

I was spayed while I was in heat for the first time, which is more expensive than spaying while a cat is not in heat.  My yowling was intolerable, so that's why I was spayed while in heat.  However, this can create other health problems, such as weight gain.  I am now a very chunky girl!

Friends do not let friends go unspayed!  No, I am not having s*x with Smokey!  She went into heat for the first time, and I decided to discipline her by scruffing her.  I let her know that going unspayed is not tolerated in MY household!  She was much calmer after being spayed, and got adopted to Mama Erin soon after.

A happy, healthy, spayed Smokey!

Starla here to say how glad I am that I got spared the rigors of teen pregnancy!  My aunt had three kittens very young, and the boys were chasing me as well.  Somehow, I never got pregnant at that time, but most female kitties get pregnant their first time.  The next time I went into heat, my people had already scheduled my spay appointment through the Spay and Save program in Portland, Oregon, one of many low-cost spay and neuter programs around the country.

I was very lucky to get my spay when I did, because there were three male cats that were trying to get me pregnant.  If I hadn't had my spay, I'm sure I would have ended up a teen mama with a litter to find homes for, like my cousin Little Bit and my aunt Boo-Boo Kitty.

Hi, Little Bit here, and this is what happens when you don't get spayed!  I'm Smokey's sister, Rori's half-sister, and Starla's cousin.  My dad Spongebob (also Rori's dad) is an unfixed male who roams the neighborhood and has befriended all the ferals within a three-block radius.  His friends also included my mom, Boo-Boo Kitty, who had a litter of three.  My other sister, Baby Chiba, had a different dad and died as a kitten.  Yes, cats can get pregnant by more than one male in the same heat cycle, so the kittens in a litter can have different dads!

When I grew up, my original people didn't want my forever family to get me spayed, and so I remained intact.  My original people were not responsible pet owners!  They only decided to give me to my forever family after a tragic thing happened:

1.  My mama cat, Boo-Boo Kitty, got pregnant again and had a litter of four.
2.  I went into my first heat cycle just after my mama cat got pregnant and had a litter of four.  My kittens were born when I was five months old, just a kitten myself!  Two of my litter had the same dad as I, which is not unusual for cats.
3.  The dog my original family owned got pregnant by another of the same litter (the dog's brother, who was a neighbor) and had a litter of 10 puppies.
4.  My original people got an eviction notice because of the amount of animals in their house.
5.  They decided to take all of us kitties except two of Boo-Boo's kittens (who already had homes) to the humane society.  But after driving around to two humane societies, they were told that it was the middle of "kitten season" and the kittens would be put-to-sleep if they were surrendered.  The people didn't want that to happen.
6.  After hearing this from the second shelter they went to, they stopped by the side of the road and threw Boo-Boo Kitty out of the car, then drove away!  I still don't know what ever happened to her after that.
7.  They drove to a fast-food restaurant, rolled down the window halfway, and went inside to eat.  Mind you, this was with my two 8-week-old baby sisters, myself, and my litter of four three-week-old boys in the vehicle.  When they got back out to the vehicle, they didn't see me and drove off anyway.
8.  They went back home and brought my baby sisters over to my forever family, two houses down, and told them the story I've just told you.  My forever daddy human was so mad that he took my baby sisters inside and left my forever mommy human to talk to the lady.
9.  My mommy went to get the box with my kittens in it from the lady's vehicle and found me in there as well!  She brought all of us back home with her.
10.  My new family found homes for all of us, but only I stayed with them as part of their forever family.  Everyone else who came with me on that horrid trip found wonderful new homes!  One of my babies had a birth defect, but even he found a forever home for the few months he lived.

I went into heat again a few days after we got to our new family's home.  Yes, I was nursing my three-week-old boys at the time, and continued to nurse.  I could've gotten spayed while I was still nursing, but my people chose to wait until I'd weaned the kittens to spay me.

I'm Tigress, and I was a teen mom as well.  However, my family chose to have my kittens spay-aborted because I was a feral kitten at the time of my pregnancy.  I was spayed through a trap-neuter-return program run by the Feral Cat Coalition of Oregon, which provides low-cost or free spays and neuters, first vaccinations, and humane trap rentals.  If I hadn't had my spay, there would have been at least two and possibly as many as five more feral cats that would have needed socializing, feeding, trapping, spaying or neutering, and adoption.  I got pregnant at the age of 4 months.

Please don't wait to get spayed or neutered!  Tell your humans to schedule your surgery today!  If your humans need financial assistance, it is available in most areas of the U.S. and Canada, and in some other countries as well.  If you are a feral cat, please tell your human to visit the Alley Cat Allies website for more information.

For World Spay Day events in your area, check out the official website.