Hello drferox, please tell me about your opinion about unwanted pregnancy in dog/cat. Especially about sterilization during pregnancy. Thank you very much.
There are still too many unwanted dogs in society, and the problem is worse in cats. Healthy adult dogs and cats are put down daily in shelters around the country, and so are puppies and kittens on a regular basis. If you raise an unwanted litter to an age where they can be adopted, then they are bot using up resources and potentially taking away homes that other animals, already born and living, could have had.
The dogs and cats already walking around on this Earth need to take priority over the unborn, even if the younger ones are ‘cuter’.
There is an abortion injection available for dogs, but it’s not 100% and has significant risk of causing pyometra, which will endanger the dog. It’s only worth considering if the dog was intended to be bred in the very near future.
Desexing (spay/spey) in early pregnancy has minimal increase risk to the female cat or dog, possibly slightly less than doing it in heat. Desexing in very late pregnancy is more difficult, and from a veterinary medicine standpoint should me treated more like a caesarian with an unfortunate outcome in terms of supporting the patient’s anaesthetic.
Dogs and cats who have been pregnant but not gone through parturition are not ‘expecting’ to have little neonates when they wake up. They don’t seem to have any behavioral change from a pregnant spay.
Unborn puppies and kittens don’t have very much in the way of senses. They want to be kept warm and secure, so once the uterus is out of the patient, the fetuses should be euthanised before the organ gets cold.
It’s unfortunate when a pregnant spay has to happen, since it is effectively aborting puppies and kittens, but the pregnant animal’s interests should be the priority. The unborn do not have more rights than the adult animal. This is especially true when the adult animal doesn’t have a home, and her kittens or puppies are likely to be adopted before she is. The potential exists in shelter situations for the pups or kittens to all be adopted, and the mother left languishing until her time is up and she’s euthanised. Morally, I think this is worse than a pregnant spay.
