Is Spaying & Neutering Inconsistent With Animal Rights?

[beforewisdom]

I'm surprised to hear as many advocates for spaying/neutering

My personal opinion is that it is something most people have never thought about and it brings up ideas too upsetting for dog & cat lovers to discuss.

[rattus]

Removing a person's finger tips is a lot less severe than castrating/neutering them.

Having "lost" the end of a single finger (right index down to the first joint), I have to tell you that I would cheerfully trade in my balls to get it back.

No question about it.

[Arnie]

This is only a small point of reference, but my experience with rats has shown that females benefit from being spayed as it greatly reduces their chances of developing mammary tumours in later life. Of my 13 rescue rats (only 5 of whom are still with me) I've had a total of 11 operations, all to remove tumours or reoccurring lumps that have formed. Of those 11, 1 has died from lumps that were too attached to be removed, and I have a second that is unfortunately in the same position and has been given days to live.

I had one of my girls spayed a week ago because she was passing blood from down below. That operation actually saved her life. The vet showed me what he took out - one of my girl's ovaries was full of pus and there was a tumour the size of a golf ball attached to her uterus. My girl should hopefully have another year of life to live, and it's incredible how she is no longer this sick little girl who sleeps all day and looks fed up. She has so much energy now and it's obvious her life has improved.

So even if my experience of the rats is all I can go by, this is enough for me to recognise the benefits of spaying.

[happy bunny]

Just read through the various aspects of of this topic and it's an area that is both sensitive and emotive. The declawing of cats is a purely egocentric decision made by humans who wish to have a 'house' cat. It seems to have become perfectly acceptable to have cats declawed in the same way as it used to be acceptable to dock the tails of 'working' dogs. Using the same awareness tactics as were used with the docking of tails, public opinion will eventually be swayed (I try to be optimistic!).

As for the neutering/spaying debate, I have experienced exceptionally distressing situations involving feral cats and dogs for whom I could do nothing to try and help or ease their situations. The local sanctuaries are full to overflowing with pens full of seriously unrehousable dogs, kittens and puppies are abandoned or killed with monotonous regularity and yet people are jumping at the chance to own the latest cool breed of cat or dog in the same way as the latest fashionable hat or bag.

The need for neutering and spaying is a necessary evil and obviously something over which the animals themselves have no say. The question has to be which animal rights have to be considered? That of the existing adults? That of the as yet non existent offspring? That of the indigenous wildlife population?

As always when human kind is involved things have become totally out of balance.