News & Media
Why Spay and Neuter Your Pets?
In the Downtown Eastside, pet owners often struggle with providing the necessary vet care their animals need. For the month of September, Atira’s Pet Outreach Program is raising money to support the tenants and animals in our buildings to help cover the cost of spay and/or neuter surgery, tattoo and a one-year microchip registration.
This surgery is effective with preventing animal overpopulation, which continues to be a huge problem across B.C. This summer, the BC SPCA reported a significant decrease of animal adoptions since the pandemic started, resulting in many animals looking for their forever homes and shelters reaching full capacity.
While not everyone can adopt these animals, it is important for current pet owners to do their part and help reduce animal overpopulation in their community. One of the best solutions for this problem is to spay and/or neuter your pets. This helps prevent the number of strays and unwanted animals in your community and helps local shelters with not being overwhelmed.
However, spaying and neutering does more for your pet beyond preventing accidental litters. There are also major health and behavioural benefits for your pet. Throughout the pregnancy and giving birth, there are health risks that can be fatal to your pet. When spaying your pet, these risks will be completely prevented. Furthermore, studies also show that spayed/neutered pets tend to live longer, and it lowers the risk of various types of cancer and infections.
Generally, spaying and neutering your pet will not have any negative effect on your pet’s personality, as the changes tend to be positive, if there are any. Studies show that neutering and spaying your pet decreases aggressive behaviours, as they don’t have the drive to mark their territories and are less likely to get into fights.
Even more, emergency vet care for any birth complications and proper newborn care are extremely time consuming and expensive. Spaying and neutering your pet is a one-time investment that are significantly lower in cost compared to all the possible costs of an animal that is not spayed or neutered. You can also have other important procedures, such as identification tattoos or microchip, completed at the same time to help keep vet costs low.
While there are some risks to spay and neuter surgery (as any surgical procedure will have), the overall benefits for you, your animal and your community outweigh those risks.
For more information on spaying/neutering, please visit the BCSPCA website.
For more information on Atira’s Pet Outreach September Campaign and how to donate, please click here.
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