SPAY AND NEUTER
Here you will find information on our Spay and Neuter Campaigns. We are PASSIONATE that this is the way
forward to prevent endless, needless suffering of stray dogs and want to help as many dogs (and cats) as we can!
It is believed that spaying/neutering just one female or male dog, more than 67,000 births can be prevented in just six years! (Source: North Shore Animal League America, 2011)
One of our main beliefs to end the suffering of innocent dogs and cats is by reducing the number of unwanted births.
Our spay and neuter campaign is ongoing and we will endeavour to continue to fundraise, spay/neuter and vaccinate dogs and cats in order to stop them being born into a world of abuse and suffering.
Victoria completes a yearly challenge to enable our mass spays to take effect each year.
In the past she has completed 400 miles of bike rides, in the latter part of 2016, Victoria raised further funds by climbing Mount Kilamanjaro, and in 2017 she wing walked hundreds of feet in the air, conquering her terrible fears of heights and sparing millions of dogs and cats from a life of abuse and misery.
We believe that Spay/Neutering is the only effective way of reducing the stray population in Romania, and we will continue with our quest to make a difference and prevent needless lives born into a life of abuse and suffering.
Please visit our DONATE page to help us save more lives - thank you xx
The importance of spay & neuter
By K-9 Angels co-founder Victoria Featherstone Pearce
The opening scene in Hamlet starts with the famous line
‘to be or not to be? that is the question’
Even most who have never read Shakespeare would be able to recite this quotation.
What Hamlet is really contemplating is
‘Whether it is better to live or better to die’
Perhaps if the famous play write William Shakespeare had been a Veterinarian as well as a play write then perhaps the famous opening line would have been quotation would have been …
‘To spay or not to spay? Is that even a question’?
My meaning being that perhaps it is better not to have been born at all than have been born into a potentially short life of misery and suffering.
Imagine just for a minute you are a Dog confined to being behind bars in the worst 'shelter' imaginable, where only the very lucky make it out alive.
You would most likely be sleeping on a cold wet floor and thrown scraps of food - and the resident vet is named 'the butcher'
Now imagine for a moment that gruesome scenes like this don't even have to happen in the first place.....In reality they don't.
Team K-9 Angels and I have seen first-hand the gruesome ' Romanian shelters' described above because on so many occasions over the past five years we have had to choose which five dogs we should rescue out of that hell hole as we only have enough funds to help save a few dogs at a time.
I suppose the saddest part of it all though is the fact that this terrible situation could have easily be avoided in the first place if people only spayed & neutered their pets.
It's not only countries such as Romania, where K-9 Angels have funded a fully equipped vet facility predominantly working on trying to spay and neuter more dogs; here in the UK more capacity and facility to space and neuter is also desperately needed too.
According to Dogs Trust almost 50,000 pet dogs are being dumped by owners in Britain every year – with healthy animals being exterminated every TWO hours by agencies who are struggling to cope.
To add to the that number the UK pet population in 2017* (source RSPCA) is estimated at 8.5 million dogs and 8.0 million cats, does this sound like we have a pet shortage?
A spay surgery prevents female dogs from getting pregnant by removing both the ovaries and the uterus. It’s not as simple as the neuter surgery the guys have, but the affects only last a few days, maybe a week. Afterward, she’ll enjoy many health benefits and neither of you will have to deal with her being in heat & more importantly unwanted pregnancies.
The benefits to your dog are considerable:
• Spaying reduces risk of certain illnesses, such as Pyometra (a common, life-threatening infection of the uterus) or mammary gland cancer.
• Spaying reduces pet overpopulation. Millions of dogs are put down every year because there aren’t enough homes for them.
• Spaying saves you from dealing with males who are wildly attracted to your dog in heat.
• Spaying eliminates the rather unattractive odour often associated with a dog in heat. Your nose may not be as sensitive as your dog’s, but even you will be able to smell this.
Remember, unspayed female dogs go into heat about once every eight months and it lasts for as long as three weeks each time. And they don’t go into menopause. They regularly go into heat for their entire lives – unless they’re spayed.
When it’s time to spay your dog
She can be spayed any time after eight weeks of age, and preferably before her first heat for the best health benefits. The first heat cycle occurs somewhere around six months of age, depending on the breed. There is some new evidence that larger breed dogs, particularly males, may benefit from being spayed later, so do check with your veterinarian.
It's not just the overpopulation of dogs, cats too!
There's huge benefits to more mass spaying & neutering of cats.
According to the Cats Protection League they estimated a whopping
one to two million stray cats, but no one really knows true figure. And on top of that over 150,000 stray and abandoned cats enter shelter care in the UK every year, does this sound like we have a cat shortage? I don't think so. What do you think happens to all of these unwanted cats? It's unthinkable.
Health Benefits
Spaying or neutering your pet cat eliminates or reduces a wide variety of health problems that can be very difficult and expensive to treat. Females no longer have to go through heat cycles and the health and behaviour-related problems that accompany them.
Male cats should be neutered too, to protect them catching diseases, such as FIV and getting nasty injuries from fighting - a male cat which hasn’t been neutered is much more likely to fight over a female mate. Neutering can also help to stop male cats from spraying indoors - which can be smelly. He’s also more likely to stay close to home, as a neutered male cat is less likely to stray. Males are no longer controlled by their hormones, reducing aggressive behaviour and the tendency to roam. But most importantly, spaying and neutering eliminates or reduces many types of cancer, tumours and other serious health complications. The simple fact is that altered pets generally live longer, healthier lives.
Have your female cat spayed at four months to protect her from getting pregnant, this is without doubt the best thing you can do for your cats health & wellbeing and the most respectful & responsible thing you can do considering the number of strays cats & cats in shelters up & down the country.
K-9 Angels motto is 'every life counts' - continuing with the theme of our motto please spay & neuter your dog & potentially prevent 67,000 lives from suffering.
The numbers speak for themselves: if one unspayed female dog is left unspayed within just 6 years she potentially can give birth to up to 67,0000 puppies! Yes, you heard that right. This number alone should be enough for every responsible pet owner to spay or neuter their pet soon as possible.
Always spay & neuter your pet. The world has too many animals & unfortunately not enough homes.
In the last 5 years since our spay & neuter campaign began we have raised enough money to sterilise over 1,000 dogs & some cats too. So, in theory we have prevented millions of unwanted pregnancies & suffering of animals from needlessly dying on the streets of Romania.
