Good Greetings to all.

Why early neutering is necessary! There are many animals, especially cats and dogs at shelters, which are in dire need of good homes. This is just because of abandonment, lost and unwanted by their owners. At the shelter, we make it compulsory for every animal adopted to be neutered. To ensure that this procedure is fulfilled, the adopter will need to place a refundable deposit which will be returned when their pet animal is neutered. This only applies when the animal adopted is very young. For those who have reached neutering age, we get them neutered while looking for adoption families.

Many are concerned that when a female animal is neutered at a very young age before their first heat, the animal will experience urinating problems at a later stage of its life. Also, the animal will gain weight. This has been discussed with vets and the findings are:

1. Neutering males at age less than a year will reduce spraying around the house.

2. Aggressive behaviour might not occur or maybe less.
3. Pets gain weight because of the volume of food given. A castrated male cat needs to be more active or given a reduced portion of food than before neutering. Certain hormones are reduced and therefore the energy is not used. So if they are not active, they will gain excess body weight.
4. Urinary incontinence occurs at an older age and has no relevance to the neutering.
5. In the West, early age neutering for kittens/pups at 7-8 weeks old is encouraged to combat over-population. This does not normally happen here but the earliest we have done was at age 4 months  when the pup had completed all its routine vaccinations. 
6. The risk of a female dog developing a mammary tumor is 0.5% if spayed before their first heat (approximately 6 months of age), 8% after their first heat, and 26% after their second heat. Cats spayed before 6 months of age have a 7-times reduced risk of developing mammary cancer and spaying at any age reduces the risk of mammary tumors by 40% to 60% in cats.

Disadvantages:

1. If female pets are spayed at a younger age there is a 0.16% chance of them having urinary tract issues due to a drop in the estrogen levels. Estrogen helps control the contraction of the urethral sphincter. Lack of estrogen ( as in a spayed female) may cause the urethral sphincter to relax and release urine involuntarily.
2. Spaying a dog will reduce her metabolism; however, obesity is the result of overfeeding and lack of physical activity. By regulating your dog's diet and caloric intake and ensuring daily exercise, you can prevent obesity in spayed (or intact) females.

However, at the end of the day there are more advantages than disadvantages in spaying pets that are less than a year old.