ChrisFilter said:
The cat will be perfectly happy without his balls. You could argue that it'd be happier.
But I would know I had physically changed the cat in order to make it docile.
I would have reluctantly had a female done, because I don't want the hassle of kittens.
But even if there is one undoctored male in the neighbourhood, we would have pregnant cats everywhere - which says to me one thing: female cat owners have a responsibility to neuter their cats if they don't want kittens.
The fighting and the roaming don't bother me, really. Cats should fight, imo, and they should be territorial. And if he gets run over by a car, that's God's way of saying he isn't very good at dodging cars. C'est la vie, I don't expect him to last forever, or even as long as possible. As long as his little life is wicked, I don't mind how long he lives, tbh.
I think there's a fair bit of propaganda spoken from animal welfare agencies about this issue, who quite rightly don't want an epidemic of cats taking over the country. I think animal sexuality is as important to them as it is to us - a way of communicating, or staking out territory, of bonding with other cats, of not bonding with other cats...Why would I take an animal and stop it's development unless it was of grave importance? I don't see roaming and fighting or the off unwanted litter as being of grave importance...
He's getting microchipped and latest boosters next week. But I don't think he'll be losing his cathood.
Neutered males, as I understand it, don't go on to grow the secondary masculine characteristics of boy cats - they don't thicken out on the face or haunches, they don't get the same musculature. It essentially condemns them to a prolonged and unnatural adolescence. I find this very unsettling, and I don't think I have the right to change an animal in that way unless it's for a direct benefit to the cat. The only benefit's that are being explained here are for the owners, it seems to me. Cats roam, they fight, they tell you to fuck off, and they don't roll over and play stupid like dogs do.
That's why I like cats.
If he starts spraying or bringing home prostitutes, then I will have to reconsider. But for now, both his Other Daddy and I are not minded to interfere.
My mate has a cat called Smokey, an undoctored male. I was gobsmacked when she said he was undoctored, because all our cats were always done whether boy or girl.
I asked: Doesn't he spray everywhere?
She said: 'Not once, never. I'd kill him and he knows it.'
'What about roaming around...'
'Oh yeah, he does that, five or six days at a time. And if he doesn't come home, well, lots of cats don't. There's no guarantee they'll suddenly know how to cross a road once they have their operation, is there?'
And Smokey is a lovely, strokable, enormous great cat, who has a great life. And there have been no side effects, save perhaps for these thousands of invisible kittens that people are talking about - and if those female cats had been neutered their owners wouldn't have that problem. If indeed, it is a problem. I don't see a shortage of people who want cats, I see a shortage of people who don't home kittens properly. I wouldn't be able to home kittens properly - that's why if Cookie had been a girl, she would have been doctored.
I didn't realise I felt so strongly about this!!!!
