'gay' Dog Saved By Facebook Campaign

For outdoor cats, it might be the sensible thing to do, but for dogs, especially male dogs, it changes their entire demeanor. It takes the youth out of them. They tend to get a lot fatter, stay a lot calmer. They also tend to have fewer health problems. My eight year old dog still acts like a young dog and is at his fighting weight. This in contrast to my friends with neutered dogs that look like sausages with legs.

I'm not one of those irresponsible idiots that lets his dog roam the streets who needs the government to hold his hand to help prevent the creation of litters of half breeds. From my experiences, neither is anyone I know. After I decided not to breed him, I considered getting it done for health reasons, but when I thought about the change in his life and personality, I thought it would be cruel that late in life.

Like I said, I can appreciate the various legitimate reasons for which people do it, but having some jackwit tell me I should, or even worse, must cut my dog's testicles off, tends to make my blood boil. The fact I pay 10x the license fees because he is uncut already irritates me enough. Yet another tax on responsible people to pay for irresponsible idiots.

 

Neutering your dog increases their chance of getting cancer. Here's a section of a document showing health positives and negatives:

On the positive side, neutering male dogs
• eliminates the small risk (probably <1%) of dying from testicular cancer
• reduces the risk of non-cancerous prostate disorders
• reduces the risk of perianal fistulas
• may possibly reduce the risk of diabetes (data inconclusive)

On the negative side, neutering male dogs
• if done before 1 year of age, significantly increases the risk of osteosarcoma (bone cancer); this is a
common cancer in medium/large and larger breeds with a poor prognosis.
• increases the risk of cardiac hemangiosarcoma by a factor of 1.6
• triples the risk of hypothyroidism
• increases the risk of progressive geriatric cognitive impairment
• triples the risk of obesity, a common health problem in dogs with many associated health problems
• quadruples the small risk (<0.6%) of prostate cancer
• doubles the small risk (<1%) of urinary tract cancers
• increases the risk of orthopedic disorders
• increases the risk of adverse reactions to vaccinations

http://www.naiaonline.org/pdfs/LongTermHealthEffectsOfSpayNeuterInDogs.pdf

Heck, it says the same on Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutering#Disadvantages

In the meantime, cancer is the leading cause of death in dogs over 10.

My dog isn't neutered either.

 

@Rebecca: Wow, was I misinformed. Both of my recent vets (Had two in the last two years), as well as the folks at animal control told me there were significant upsides to my dogs health if I neutered him. To this very moment, they had my wife convinced that neutered dogs live on an average two years longer. Its not like it was some urban legend, those words were uttered practically verbatim to my wife the last time the dog was at the vet.

The weight thing is the thing that stands out the most. Some of my friends neutered dogs are overweight to the point of being grossly obese. I don't press the issue, but when it comes up, they usually apologize for not being able to walk the dog as often as they would like and usually explain how they have had the dog on a variety of diets to get his weight under control, to no avail.

What could possibly be the point of spreading misinformation in furtherance of whacking off your animals genitals? I spent some time talking to the folks at my local animal control and they rarely destroy an animal (They have a very effective adoption program). There were a large number of abandoned animals during 2009-2010 as people walked away from their mortgages to rent and could no longer keep an animal, but that has very little to do with neutering.

 

I'll speculate. This may sound harsh, it's just my opinion.. You won't see many veterinarians actively educating clients about the health risks of neutering. This is a product they're selling. If a dog does get a higher chance for cancer, they will make money again. Like the relationship they've had with Science Diet. If you analyze the ingredients, many other foods are so much better quality in comparison. It's not that great. However, if they're selling it in the clinic, they'll push it to make a profit. In fact, even applying pressure on you to buy it from them.

Sure, they care about animals. But if they do get sick, they can treat them! Besides, there is the overpopulation problem. Even when it came out that dogs and cats do not need to be vaccinated every year. In fact, it could be harmful to do so. It was in the medical journals. Information was spreading on the Internet. But, in my case, the veterinarian was the last place I would hear that. Yearly vaccines are a great revenue source. It seemed like many kept pushing the annual vaccines, until they had no other choice. Also, many people just say neutering is healthy because they heard it somewhere. They simply repeat it.

 

Yah it does sound harsh. And accurate. I think I told this story earlier, but the reason I had two vets in the last few years is because my dog had mange in Central America, for much of the time he was down there. Hot, humid environments and Shepherds don't mix too well. He was on and off invermec treatment to fight the mange, and when I got him back to the states he was in full relapse. We told the first vet in the states what his ailment was, but he said he had to run blood and skin tests before prescribing any medicine. $500 later, he tells me the dog doesn't have mange and prescribed some other medicine which, after three months and several hundred more dollars, actually made his condition worse. We took him to another vet, paid another $500 for skin and blood tests, and can you believe it? It turns out he has mange, for which she perscribed invermec ($80 a scrip), as well as a bi-monthly medicated bath treatment ($250/pop).

Roll the clock forward another 4 months (now at ~$2500 in total US vet bills) and she calls the dog in for his annual worming treatment. As it turns out, the worming pills are a massive dose of ..... invermectin. She basically overdosed my dog on invermectin and damn near killed him. He was stumbling around drunk, could barely walk, and my wife calls the vet, who insists the dog come in for a late night emergency visit and blood panel ($282). I told her to hang up the phone.

We just gave the dog lots of water overnight and he flushed the drugs out of his system. I started feeding him whole chickens instead of dog food and the mange was gone in three weeks(never been back). I've never looked at vets the same way since. Invermectin, by the way, does damage to your animal's liver, something every pet owner who faithfully shows up for those worming appointments should be thinking about.

 

Unbelievable. Your dog is misdiagnosed by the first vet. And the second, causes dangerous physical harm. Your dog would have been better off without medical treatment. There is a lack of quality veterinarians! You have to be skeptical. Research. Be your dogs best advocate. Blind trust isn't a good idea when dealing with veterinarians, or even your own physician.

 

Quite right. Look at the statistics on how many people are killed by errors in the medical industry. You can practically save your own life by staying out of hospitals in June.

 

I took my female cat in to get desexed a few years ago now and spent the day hoping it all went okay. When I went in to pick her up the secretary said "that's $95 thanks".

I freaked. How about telling me the operation went well and the cat is fine! I blew up, told my partner to pay, told the secretary where to go and never went back to the money-grubbing f'tards again.

A vet without compassion for animals or owners can go jump.

 

I just looked it up. Apparently, preventable medical errors are the sixth leading cause of death in the US.



Source: Justice.org

Medical errors kill at least 98,000 Americans every year. Crazy!

That's awful. I would feel the same way. If you were concerned about your cat (anyone would be), common decency would be to reassure you all went well, offer follow up directions...Rather than just start it off with, "Give us your money!"

 

That is pretty crazy Rebecca. 98,000 Americans killed by doctors every year, vs 11,000 by firearm related homocides, and 34,000 deaths by auto accident.

I'm thinking we should forget about outlawing guns and cars and focus on outlawing doctors!

 

I know, right?! And the 98,000 is only the number of deaths each year. Add 181,000 severe injuries in the US each year caused by medical errors.

 

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I am thinking they should have much much higher qualifications. I have heard (no link, sorry) that in some places in China that a doctor only gets paid if he heals his patients. A simple change in the law - boom - people get better.

 

My bad, I have taken us off-topic..

 

Haha. It seems the unintended consequence there would be that a doctor wouldn't put much effort into patients that had a low probability of a favorable outcome.

The laws in the US work much the same way, with a twist. If you are unhappy with the outcome, and you feel it was the doctors fault, you sue for malpractice and recover your costs as well as some comfort money for your pain and suffering (After the attorney takes 25%). I probably had a reasonable case for the doctor who overdosed my dog, but that whole process just feels so sleazy. The dog survived and I learned an important lesson.

 

Something you'll probably never hear a doctor say:
"Your satisfaction is guaranteed or else you'll get your money back".