Achilles, an 18-month-old male cat, was asleep on my exam table. Well, not really asleep. He was anesthetized, and being prepped for neutering. “When does Maddy get here?” I asked my assistant Fawn. After 35 years of doing everything from routine cat spays to high-anxiety emergency splenectomies, I recently hung up my scalpel and stopped doing most surgical procedures. Factors leading to this decision included benign but annoying age-related issues with fine motor control, less acute vision, cardiovascular disease, major changes in the standard of care in veterinary medicine, and a general need to reduce stress in my life. So Maddy, who has been working here since she graduated from college last June, doesn’t get to observe much surgery. But neutering a male cat? That I can still do, easy peasy. Not terribly exciting, but at least a change for Maddy from kitty vaccinations and doggy diarrhea.
While owners of male dogs sometimes resist the idea of neutering, most cat owners understand the benefits of castrating tomcats. I mean, have you ever smelled tomcat urine? Need I say more? I’ll say more, anyway. Here are some of the advantages of neutering Achilles. Intact male cats are strongly driven by breeding and territorial instincts, leading to objectionable and potentially dangerous behaviors such as roaming, urine marking, and fighting with other cats. Roaming cats get hit by cars, attacked by dogs, lost in the woods. Then there’s the fighting. Cat-bite wounds can transmit life-threatening diseases such as feline leukemia virus, or result in nasty bacterial abscesses. Urine marking is not inherently dangerous to Achilles … except you’re gonna wanna kill him when he pees on the side of your couch. Seriously, “inappropriate urination” is one of the main reasons cats are surrendered to shelters. Anything that can be done to literally nip it in the bud, will make for a better life for Achilles, and for you and your couch.
The procedure is simple. In the old days, pre-anesthetic bloodwork was rarely done on young male cats presenting for neutering. In fact, in some areas, farm vets still castrate barn cats right in the barn, with minimal precautions of any kind. Though nowadays, preoperative bloodwork is considered standard of care. So are general anesthesia, sterile surgical techniques, and postoperative pain control. We did Achilles’ bloodwork last week, so here he is now, snoozing on my table. Maddy arrives to observe. We shave the hair and do a gentle surgical scrub. A small incision is made in the scrotum over one testicle, which I then exteriorize, along with the spermatic cord which contains the vas deferens and a bunch of blood vessels all wrapped up together in a structure called the pampiniform plexus. Some vets like to clamp the cord with a metal clip, but I like the elegant simplicity of the old school method. Separating the vas deferens from the pampiniform plexus, I tie them together in a double square knot. Right over left, left over right, repeat. Then snip, snip. Then do the same thing on the second testicle. Incise, exteriorize, separate, tie together, snip, snip. That’s it.
Removing the testicles removes the source of testosterone, so not only will Achilles be prevented from breeding, he will also lose much of the urge to roam, fight, and pee on things. This keeps him safer, and makes him a better pet. It may take some time for all the behaviors to stop, but odds are that 90 percent of these habits will go away within six months. If you neuter him before the behaviors begin, even better. Which brings us to the question: At what age should a male kitten be neutered?
Back in the last century, when I was a young(er) veterinarian, we often advised owners to wait until male cats were 6 to 9 months old before neutering. The belief was that early neutering could lead to a narrowed urethra, thus predisposing to the life-threatening condition of urinary tract blockage. This has since been debunked. So have theories that early neutering could cause shyness, poor socialization, or stunted growth. The only potential negative effect of early neutering is a slight increase in the risk of one specific but uncommon type of femoral fracture involving the growth plate. The benefits of getting a cat neutered early far outweigh any downsides, and most shelters and pet adoption services want their adoptees neutered either before they leave for their new homes, or as soon as possible thereafter.
Then there are situations like Sugar and Spice. These two littermate kittens were obtained together from a breeder. One boy, one girl. They are only 3 months old right now, but don’t think that siblings won’t breed. Queens have been known to get pregnant as young as 4 months. Males may take up to 6 months to become sexually mature and active, but having an intact male and intact female in the same household is asking for an unexpected litter. I suggested to Sugar and Spice’s owner that neutering and spaying them both at 4 months old would be good, just to be on the safe side. At this age, the surgeries are easier both for the surgeon and the patient. The older a tom gets, the larger the family jewels. Membranes get tougher. Blood vessels get larger. Conversely, I am glad the trend of neutering at 8 weeks old went out of favor quickly. In those cases, even while wearing a magnifying headset, I felt like I was performing microsurgery.
While I neutered Achilles, Fawn, Maddy, and I traded stories. Maddy had seen horse castrations while in Colorado, all of them done with the patient anesthetized and laid on the ground. I described how we were taught to do them with the horse still standing up, albeit sedated, an experience that helped confirm for me that I was not cut out to be an equine practitioner. In comparison, I guess, my kitty procedure was not very exciting … but that was fine with me and Achilles.
