Spaying - A Simple Procedure With Great Benefits For Your Pet
By Lorie Huston
Copyright 2006 The Pet Med Site

Spaying your female pet has many benefits, both for you, as a pet owner, and for your pet. Besides preventing unwanted litters of puppies or kittens, spaying can also help make make it possible for your female pet to lead a longer and healthier life.

Let's start at the beginning. Spaying your pet means removing the female reproductive organs, specifically the uterus and ovaries, so that your pet can no longer become pregnant. The more technical name for a spay is an ovariohysterectomy (or OHE, for short).

Obviously, if breeding your pet is a priority for you, spaying is not an option. However, any female pet which is not a breeding animal can benefit tremendously by being spayed.

What are the benefits of spaying your female pet? Well, of course, one of the most obvious benefits is that you will no longer need to worry about your pet becoming pregnant. You also will not have to worry about your female pet coming into "heat". This means, for a dog, no bleeding or mess associated with your dog being "in heat".

For a cat, it means not having to tolerate the unpleasant behaviors that your cat experiences while being "in heat". For those of you who have never been around a cat "in heat", these behaviors include loud and frequent vocalization, which can disrupt your entire household, pacing, and urine marking in your home. Unspayed female can come into "heat" every few days. This behavior is often a deciding factor for cat owners when considering whether or not to spay their female cat.

There are a number health benefits for your spayed female pet also. If left unspayed, female pets often develop a condition known as pyometra. Pyometra is a severe, life-threatening infection of the female uterus. It is frequently a fatal condition if left untreated. Even with treatment, some female pets do not survive a pyometra infection. Because your female pet's uterus is removed when she is spayed, the possibility of developing a pyometra is completely removed. Spayed female pets cannot develop this disease.

In addition, because your female pet cannot become pregnant, you don't have to worry about complications which can occur during or after the birth process

of pregnant female pets. There is no need to worry about puppies or kittens being to large to pass through the birth canal, or in the wrong position to be born normally. Conditions such as metritis (an infection of the uterus which occurs after pregnancy) and mastitis (infection of the mammary glands, or breasts) cannot occur in spayed female pets either.

Another benefit to spaying your female pet is a lower chance of developing breast tumors later in life. This primarily applies to pets which are spayed at a young age. If spayed before the first "heat" cycle, the chance of your pet developing breast cancer later in life is very low.

It is a proven fact that pets which are spayed lead longer, healthier lives. Some estimates indicate that spayed females can live as long as twice as long as unspayed females.

Spaying also tends to make your pet calmer and more affectionate, without the mood swings that can accompany the "heat" cycle.

As you can see, there are many strong reasons for spaying your female pet.

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Lorie Huston has been a veterinarian for over 20 years, working with both dogs and cats. She emphasizes the use of routine preventive pet health care to keep your pets healthy and safe. Lorie is the owner, editor, and webmaster of The Pet Med Site where you will find a library of information pertaining to pet health care, including free audio recordings describing the secrets to keeping your dog or cat healthy. For more information, visit www.thepetmedsite.com/