I FEEL so bad!!!! (page 6)

Elsewhere

SpiceItUp ,

Earlier you said...

...but it still feels wrong to inforce my will on him even if its for his and his prodigys good.

LOL, I can't help but notice that that is how women feel about ALL males in their lives!!!

SYN

Spicey: What I meant was, emotional and hormonal side-effects...perhaps I wasn't making myself clear enough If you snip the tubes, there are no hormonal/emotional side effects...

SpiceItUp

emotional and hormonal side-effects

On that I have to agree---now my Onyx is much happier and balanced

speaking of which I guess an update is in order---

Thank you to all the support I received here----Onyx is doing fine and is even more (which I didn't think was possible) devoted to me. He seems to be adjusting quite nicely. He will be 6 months old in 1 week and is IMO the most beautiful creature ever.

Spice

SpiceItUp

Elsewhere.....lol...

Actually I like my men with a mind of their own---someone not scared to wrestle with me

SYN

You can ask Moe how good my Double Whammy Takedown Hold is!

Elsewhere

RedhorseWoman

If he decides he wants to be a crazy man and pee pee in the house then he can pee pee outside as I have no tolerance for and animal that uses my home as a toilet (or scratching post.)

Moe, I can understand your decision to get a vasectomy for your cat rather than going the tradtional neutering route. However, this comment of yours really concerns me.

You do realize, don't you, that a male cat with full hormones will spray to mark territory? And that territory will most likely be your home....inside. And a fully hormonal male's urine stinks....big-time.

He will not consider this as using your home as a toilet....he will consider it marking your home as HIS territory. What will you do when he begins to do this? Will you force him to stay outside? If so, then you will be responsible for his getting into fights with local toms, which will mean constant injuries and the likelihood of his contracting FIV or FELV....which are a feline death sentence.

Please....if you decide to not neuter him.....accept the fact that you will have a non-reproducing, full male in your home and accept his natural, hormonal activities. Don't punish him because YOU think he should keep his hormones (which mean NOTHING to him).

2SYN

RedHorseWoman: How do you know they mean nothing to him? And technically he wouldn't be a HIM anymore after this modification, just sort of an IT. An androgonous, modified TOY. *shudder*

Edited to add: OK, the above was a bit harsh. I didn't mean to offend anybody - these are just MY feelings, if you do this out of love, then your motivations are in the right place I suppose. Opinions vary

Edited by - 2SYN on 20 July 2002 17:23:37

RedhorseWoman

Syn, to be perfectly honest, a neutered cat very often seems relieved that they don't have to deal with all of the hormonal urges anymore. No one can know for sure, though.

However, my main point was that if you decide to keep a cat in a hormonally active state, you can't then turn around and state that you'll put them out if they engage in hormonally activated behavior. If you want them to retain their "manhood", then you'd better be prepared to put up with all of the activities in which full toms engage....spraying, fighting, territorial aggression, wandering far from home in search of females.

Then you'd also better be prepared for lots of vet bills to repair the damage from fighting...including torn ears, abcesses, corneal ulcers from scratches, and the very real possiblity of their contracting deadly diseases from cat bites.

Then, of course, you'll also have one dirty, smelly cat around. You see, toms that are in full "heat seeking" mode don't generally groom themselves much, and their urine (when they spray it on your possessions) smells REALLY bad.

I just have a feeling that the desire to allow a cat to retain its "manhood" is going to result in that cat's being euthanized at a shelter because you don't feel like putting up with all the behavior that goes along with it.

Obviously, I would rather see a cat happy, healthy, and in a home for life rather than being thrown out on the street because someone thought that "manhood" was better than life itself.

I'm sorry if I'm offending anyone, but I've seen altogether too many cats suffering because people have hangups about "hormones".

2SYN

Hi RedHorseWoman,

Well I understand your point of view - and I don't want animals suffering either. That is why I don't keep pets.

Obviously, this is not a problem that is going to go away because *I* don't have pets, so I suppose that people have to do what they have to do in order to prevent the problem escalating, and I don't blame them for that.

But me personally, I wouldn't A) have a cat or B) neuter it if I did (I'd just get it a vasectomy).

That's my PERSONAL view - if you do this to your cat out of love, and you feel it is happy, then that is OK by me and I won't criticize you for it.

I FEEL so bad!!!!

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