Cat Balls and Broken Bright

Wow, already May – times flies! Tiny Marvin is around seven months old now. Old enough to start thinking about neutering. I neutered Dragon and Fizban at 9 months, I wanted to give the big boys a chance to grow before messing with their hormones. There is certainly more information available these days about the drawbacks of neutering dogs. The studies are mostly in favor of keeping dogs intact, which should not be a huge surprise – hormones are there for a reason. More benefits to male dogs than females, I think.

My personal belief is male hormones help support the dog, female hormones are there to support the puppies. In dogs, the female hormones are the same every time they go into heat, the body reacts like there are puppies whether the dog is actually pregnant or not, including having ‘phantom pregnancies’. So, for me, in general I am favor of keeping boy dogs intact and spaying girls after they’re grown. But I also think quality of life is the biggest factor – if a boy dog is a giant asshole to live with, then neutering is better than life with an asshole.

Anyway, I have a lot of data with dogs to work with, from actual studies to personal experience with a large body of dogs that I work with and know. Yet if you asked on the internet if you should spay/neuter your dog, you’d get a very different answer. Understandably, people are very concerned with pet overpopulation, and it has been beaten into our heads for years that spaying and neutering is the only responsible way to have animals. That intact animals are more aggressive, will go crazy and break out and roam the neighborhood looking for potential mates, pee on everything, die of reproductive cancer and have a poor quality of life. Having worked at the shelter and the vet, I see how it seems like a good idea to really ‘sell’ spaying and neutering to the new pet owner. It has really become gospel these days though, and certainly not normal in other parts of the world. People in Europe must think we’re total nutjobs.

So I was thinking about bringing Marvin in for a rabies shot and to think about scheduling his neuter and it occurred to me – what about cats? Unlike dogs, I have about zero information about living with intact cats. Everything I’ve ever heard makes it sound extremely unpleasant. Girl cats cycle continuously every three months, boy cats spray everywhere. However, the only intact boys I know of live as breeding cats, which means they live in a house with continuously cycling girl cats – which I imagine is quite … stimulating.

Out of curiosity, I poked around online for any information about living with an intact male cat that was NOT around any intact females, what did they act like? Did they still spray? Was it inevitable? I wasn’t the first to ask the question, but the only answers I came across were rabid animal rescue nuts parroting gospel about pet overpopulation and how the cat would spray all over their house and bust out and impregnate the neighborhood. Yet none of them actually had any first hand knowledge of this, it was quite clear they were just doing their best to ‘save’ this cat from not getting neutered. I found a couple bewildered pet owners that replied that they had intact indoor boy cats that got along great and never sprayed, who were immediately shamed and informed it was only a matter of time. And maybe it IS only a matter of time, it just bugs me now that there is no actual information about the subject, just hysterical mobs bent on neutering, but their focus on pet overpopulation not necessarily what is best for the individual.

I had two cats I adopted from the shelter that were brought in as mature intact toms. Obviously they were neutered before I adopted them, but I adored their strong, badass personalities. Of course, maybe they would have still been strong and badass if they had been neutered at 8 weeks, I’ll never know. I do know that certainly had no issues after they were neutered, they were best of friends their whole lives, never sprayed. And the only intact male I know that lived in a house was Fizban’s dad, who lived with the breeder and sprayed all over his area (obviously lived in a house with a bunch of intact cycling girls).

Anyway, Marvin will most likely be neutered at some point, but I kind of want to do an experiment and see what happens. ‘They’ say on the internet that once they start spraying they’ll never stop, even if you neuter them – but Fizban’s dad, the one that spent years spraying up his enclosure was neutered and now lives in a pet home, as happy as can be – no issues. And, of course, my parent’s neutered cat started spaying in the house when he like 12 years old. So you never know.

Anyway, Marvin is doing really well, and getting more athletic and very fluffy! He can now jump straight up onto the counters instead of having to use the chair first. Sigh. My new floor is now damaged from a plate shattering from being thrown from the counter because of the cats. Troublemakers. Marvin is just getting more playful and active, the maine coons seem so mellow next to him! We all just adore him, so glad he’s here. Knock on wood, after their second set of antibiotics, the cats seem to be well for the moment. We’ll see what happens, the whole swapping sicknesses back and forth gets real old after 5 months.

I did let Marvin have his first experiences out in the backyard. We had some surprisingly nice weather and it was really fun to see him romp and explore. Fizban enjoys a stroll in the yard as well, of course. I don’t worry about Fizban as he literally lacks the athleticism to jump the fence. Little Marvin doesn’t either … yet. We shall see, I’d like him to be able to have some supervised romps in the yard, it’s such a fabulous enrichment to the life of an indoor cat. I even bought them a catnip plant – Fizzy approves!

I did finally cave in and buy a chest freezer, so all the animals can now be supplemented with raw. I feel good about this decision, I’m hoping it will help with the cats teeth – and Navarre’s too, of course. The cats very much enjoy it, and the dogs do too … except that they are all determined to only eat it on the carpet – WTF? So I’ll put some pieces of raw in with their kibble and they pick up the raw, carry it across the room to dump it on the carpet to eat. NOT HELPFUL. Then while that dog is gone the other dogs go to steal that dog’s food and then dogs are scrambling going from bowl to bowl and stressed out when normally it’s just calm happy food times. EAT IT OUT OF YOUR OWN BOWL, NOOBS. So I have to be the Food Police until these dorks figure out the concept that you can actually eat raw not on the carpet.

In other news, Bright broke herself playing at the park last night. She will occasionally have some front end lameness – but this is rear. And I really, really, really don’t want it to be a knee. So far I’m just trying to ignore it and see what happens in a week. But I pulled her from the trials I entered her in May, I’m worried it may be something serious. Bummed.

But on the other side of the coin – Haku is fat! I actually find it rather weird to see him looking so round. He’s got about 1/4 of a bag left of his second bag of his ‘fancy’ veterinarian Fat Food. Which involves a lot of corn in the ingredients. He’s like a cow being fattened for slaughter. I should probably start cutting back at this point, it’s just so nice to see some meat on him again.

I have had other things going on, but we did have a chance to go down South for another herding lesson, we went out into the big field there to work on driving. Basically it came down to, we both just need more practice. Navarre is Navarre, but he’s thinking more, some glimmers here and there. We haven’t had any access to sheep, but we have been practicing on toys. Which ‘real’ herding people are horrified with, but I think once Navarre figured out how to walk up on a toy there really was a lightbulb moment. Now, flanking a toy we just started with, he’s not quite there, but the walkup with lie downs, he can do that, which is nice to see.

Agility-wise, we haven’t been doing much of anything, just tons of recall to hand, but not in sequence. I’m hoping trialing again gives me some inspiration, and we have the Justine/Jessica seminar in June. Right now, for various reasons, we just haven’t been focused on agility.

And the Summer of Puppies has begun! Soon I will get to visit Briards, the first puppies of the year!