Desexing means that an animal cannot have babies, also known as breeding. Desexing is the most important way for companion animal owners to avoid contributing to the thousands of unwanted animals that populate animal shelters across Australia.
Did your family or friends adopt a companion animal (pet) recently? If your companion animal has not been desexed yet, now is the time to get it done!
By six months of age, many types of animals can already have babies. Many people wait too long to get their companion animal desexed, thinking their companion animal is still just a baby themselves. But before they know it, they have a litter of tiny babies that they’ll need to care for and find homes for. Finding a loving, responsible home for each animal isn’t always that easy and vet care for a litter of animals can quickly get very expensive.
What’s more, if those animals don’t get spayed or neutered, they will have babies too - meaning more loving, responsible, forever homes will need to be found.
Every year, thousands of abandoned, neglected and unwanted dogs, cats, rabbits and other animals are taken in by RSPCA Shelters and other animal rescue shelters around Australia. Some of these animals are lucky enough to be adopted into loving, responsible, forever homes, but sadly there are far more animals in need of a caring family than there are kind, responsible people willing to provide them with a good, permanent home.
Companion animal overpopulation is a serious problem. Animal shelters become overcrowded and are unable to optimally care for the thousands of homeless companion animals in Australia every year. The rate of companion animals being adopted is not enough to consistently ease the crowding. For those animals who do not find their way to the safety of an animal shelter and remain homeless, they live a lonely, hard life out on the streets, trying to survive on their own.
There are three main reasons:
RSPCA desexes every animal adopted from our RSPCA Centres, even those as young as eight-weeks-old.
We also recommend that people have their current companion animals desexed as soon as possible. Remember, it is an easy procedure for your veterinarian to perform and most animals recover very quickly.
For more questions about when to have your companion animal spayed or neutered, speak with your veterinarian.
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