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From: heffel@shogun.DEC (Tracey Heffelfinger Dtn:354-7431 GSO/F5)
Newsgroups: net.pets
Subject: \"fixed\" versus \"spayed or neutered\"
Message-ID: <1120@decwrl.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 28-Oct-85 16:28:10 EST
Article-I.D.: decwrl.1120
Posted: Mon Oct 28 16:28:10 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 30-Oct-85 06:07:34 EST
Sender: daemon@decwrl.UUCP
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Lines: 26


   Actually Spencer if you *really* want to be correct, try hysterectomy
and castration.  

   As for proper age, for females it's generally agreed that 6 months is
good.  Gives her enough time to grow but gets her before her first heat.
(No "accidents" that way.)  Males can be done as early as 6 months, but
generally vets prefer to wait until they are about 9 months old before doing
them.  (The exceptions are when they mature early and start getting romantic
with things like knitted afghans, as our male Merry did, or when they have
something else wrong.  Our cat Pippin had an umbilical hernia.  That's not
unusual in kittens and they usually repair themselves.  However Pip's was
getting bigger instead of smaller and since they had to go into the abdominal
cavity anyway to get an undescended testicle, our vet decided to get everything
at once at the age of 6 months.)  (Trivia fact for the day: The condition
of having one testicle descended and the other not is called monorchidism.)
(Bet you can't wait for the next party, so you can show off that one!)

"I do nothing in particular but I do it very well." --W.S. Gilbert

Tracey Heffelfinger
Digital Equipment Corp.
Greenville, S.C.

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