Cats who are Not Spayed Should Not Go Outside

If you spend any time on Yahoo! Answers, or throughout the Internet in forums on pets, you will often encounter people freaking out as they should do in regard to their cat who is about to have kittens, or who just has had kittens, and so forth.

As a person who is well aware of the statistics regarding cat overpopulation these people frighten me. Don't get me wrong, I love kittens, they are super cute, but I am disgusted at the number of people who let their cats breed with little regard to the fact that in the United States alone over 3 million more cats are born than there will be homes for and those cats will be euthanized in shelters. Not to mention the untold others killed by owners who do not know what to do with them, or tossed out, abandoned to become feral or die.

Very simply I would love to yell “Spay your Cat!”. People seem to come up with all kinds of excuses as to why they did not spay their cat, the most feeble being “I was going to spay her but she was pregnant.”. This is a horrid excuse since a cat who was not spayed should not have been allowed outside in the first place. Other people actually use the fact that the cat was in heat as an excuse for letting her get pregnant “She was so annoying, I had to put her outside.”.

Some pet owners seriously horrify me.

There is really no excuse for letting a cat get pregnant. Domestic cats are not an endangered species, there is no reason to make more. Her own health is at risk simply by being allowed to breed – she risks getting a cat STD (sexually transmitted disease), the pregnancy itself could have complications (perhaps requiring a cesarean section to save her life), and if she is young, old, or in poor health, her life could be at risk in general.

As a person who has worked at an animal shelter, and seen week old, three week old, eight week old, and so on, kittens being euthanized by the bag full, I beg all cat owners to think harder about spaying their cat. If for some moral, or financial reason you opt not to spay your cat, at least keep her indoors. The reality is that for every kitten born there are more that will not find homes, if your cat's kittens find homes somebody else's cat's kittens will not.

There are just not enough homes for all the kittens, deal with it!