I have this deep-seated aversion to being lied to and manipulated for my own or the common good. I also am allergic to lying to and manipulating other people.
So let me be crystal clear. Like everything else, be it diet or vaccinations or drugs or herbs, there are risks and benefits to altering dogs and cats. I think we need to make informed decisions on all aspects of how to care for our animals, and you can't make an informed decision when you're being lied to. Lied to over and over and over, explicitly. Not metaphorically, not by omission, but actually told big fat lies.
Pick up any number of dog, cat, or general consumer magazines, and you'll be assured that not only are there no adverse effects of spaying and neutering, but altering will make your pets healthier and better behaved. They'll be less likely to soil in the house, to roam, to fight, and they won't get testicular, uterine, or ovarian cancer or infections (well duh), and will greatly reduce their chances of getting mammary cancer. You'll be spared messy heats and the risk of unwanted puppies or kittens. It's enough to make you rush right out and get spayed or neutered yourself.
But is it true?
Sure, some of those things are true. You can't get cancer or an infection in an organ that you no longer possess, so yeah, your dog or cat won't get ovarian, uterine, or testicular cancer or infections. And in females, there is an increased incidence of mammary cancer in intact animals, and a pretty high rate of uterine infection as well.
But is there a downside?
Are you listening? Good. Because I'm about to tell you the truth. You may have never heard it before. There are risks to altering your cat or dog.
Neutered and spayed dogs appear to have a greater .... not lower, GREATER ... risk of some cancers, including osteosarcoma, a painful and basically fatal cancer to which I lost my spayed deerhound Raven last September, than intact animals. (1, 1b) Neutered males have a greater chance of getting prostate cancer than intact males (although the incidence of prostate cancer in dogs is very low). (2) Neutered dogs have a four times greater chance of getting transitional cell carcinoma in their bladder than intact dogs. (3)
Spayed females have a greater incidence of urinary incontinence (actually called "spay incontinence," often by the same vets who assure you there are no adverse effects to spaying and neutering) than intact females. (4) They may also have a higher risk of bladder infections. (4b)
Spayed female and neutered male dogs have a significantly greater incidence of anterior cruciate ligament injuries than intact dogs. (5)
And yes, no matter what you've been told, study after study has shown that spayed and neutered dogs and cats weigh more when fed the same amount of calories as intact animals. Altering won't "make" them fat, but it reduces the amount of food they can eat. For most dogs and cats that's actually no big deal - just feed them a little less, exercise them a little more, and they'll be fine. But how do you do that when you're having it beaten into your brain every time you turn around that spaying and neutering does not, cannot, make your dog or cat fat, or have any adverse effects on your animals at all? (6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
So what's the justification for this massive campaign of bullshit? That people are idiots, basically, and can't be trusted to prevent unwanted pregnancies or keep proper control of their intact animals. And this is the problem. Because one thing that working for more than fifteen years in online pet communities has taught me is that a scary number of people are, in fact, idiots. (I don't mean you.) Most people, frankly, don't appear to know enough to come in out of the rain let alone manage a house full of sexually intact dogs and/or cats. Do I have an answer for this problem? If only. I just know lying is not the answer.
So, are there health benefits to altering dogs and cats? I think that will vary from animal to animal. If you want my "big picture" opinion, I'd say that for most females the benefits of spaying outweigh the risks, as long as the owner pays attention to any signs of weight gain, but for males, the risks probably outweigh the benefits. Breed, lifestyle, and other considerations will affect this analysis, but the bottom line is, to make the analysis in the first place, you have to have some facts, and not just propaganda. Are my footnotes, below, enough "facts" for that analysis? Absolutely not. They're meant only to suggest that this issue, like most issues, really does have two sides, and that a statement that there are no risks, only benefits, to altering dogs and cats can't be supported with the evidence. But that's probably more than you had before.
Footnotes, you want footnotes? After the jump.
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I hang out on a lot of science blogs because I used to write about science and medicine a lot. (Did you really think all I do is buy shoes and watch TV?) And while I don't think it's a good idea to let scientists run the world, we could do a whole lot worse and actually, we are doing a whole lot worse.
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