When is the best time to get your cat spayed or neutered?

When you first get a new cat or kitten and bring it home the last thing, you’re thinking about at that time is getting it spayed or neutered. Unless you’re the parent and you really didn’t want the new addition to the household in the first place then that is the first thing you’re thinking about because you don’t want any more cats, and the only reason you allowed the new pet in the first place was for your child or children. Really though as long as there are not more cats in the house and you’re actually keeping the new pet in the house you really shouldn’t have anything to worry about. However, a lot of pet owners just really don’t want pets in the house. Well, I have news for cat owners that don’t want cats in the house. Cats are not outside animals. The fact that cats are not outside animals is the reason that a lot of them get lost and that is a lot of the reason why you see so many of them dead in the road. When me and Alex were running our business, and I was keeping his cat Tiger he kept bringing up getting tiger neutered but I was against it. I worked as a veterinarian’s assistant and that always really bothered me. Basically, when you get the new pet your all happy and just want to play with the new pet. When Tiger went back to Alex’s parents in Colorado, Long story short Alex’s parents wanted Tiger back and ever sense Tiger has been living a happy life on Alex’s parent’s land in Colorado, and Alex brought me two kittens that just happened to be Tigers baby’s that’s what happened with me, I just loved those kittens, but the problem was they were brother and sister, and I knew that eventually I would run into the problem of those two kittens mating. I kept wondering when a good time to have them both fixed was but at the same time I felt like I was worrying about this too soon. Like I said in the previous post I saw the signs the Olive was pregnant, but long story short and to kind of keep from this post from being a repeat from the last post people thought it was just me being paranoid or my imagination when I told them of my suspicion’s that Olive was pregnant. Basically, after my suspicions had been confirmed I was finding out that I had waited too late to get Olive spayed.

So, 2023 was such a crazy year actually so was 2022 but those two years were just brewing what was to come for 2024. I guess it wasn’t really bad just people were giving me all of this drama that I just didn’t really need, and it was getting to be a problem in my professional life. That was not settling all that well with me because I moved to San Antonio to build my career. That did not seem to be happening. When summer of 2023 hit it was pretty clear that the business that I had started with my friends Alex and Tony was not going to go on past July, so I was trying to make plans to go ahead and pull out right then. I didn’t think it was going to be as traumatic as it was when I had pretty much been out of college a while and basically had to work in a call center for three years when moving to San Antonio and it just felt like I was getting nowhere, and I knew I needed to do something. In some ways it was worse because there were more people to find ways to creatively interfere but that’s another story for a later time. However, it was summer of 2023 and the company that me Alex and Tony had started together was downsizing and not only was I thinking that it was time to get my female cat Olive Spayed I needed to do it while things were the way they were with the company, and I had all of this time. I found out about low-cost pet vet when I was taking another one of my cats to get microchipped and they were the ones that had the mobile clinic that weekend in front of a car repair garage. They gave me their card and I felt better about the cost of getting Olive spayed because I thought it was going to cost a lot to get the cat that I took to the low-cost pet vet to get microchipped, but it didn’t. After that a lot of it was about time. Time at that time was just something I just didn’t feel like I had. So now I was at this point with the business, so I called up low-cost pet vet only to find out their next appointment was in November, I was so shocked me and the medical assistant shared a laugh at that. I told her to go ahead and book the appointment. They told me that they wanted to do a consultation with Olive just to see kind of what kind of condition she is in and if there are any health problems anything that could pose a problem to the surgery. We got that scheduled for the following Tuesday. Because there are certain places that I don’t know very well in San Antonio even though I have been living here for quite a few years now. I GPS’d where this veterinarian clinic was and made that drive. I really couldn’t afford to miss this appointment, and I wanted all of my t’s crossed and my i’s dotted. Due to my living situation at the time, I didn’t need a bunch of kittens running around my apartment.

The day of the consultation appointment for Olive prior to her Surgery to be fixed in about three months from that day that I was taking her in for her preliminary appointment. She didn’t do well in the car, but when I got there, I found the staff to be very nice and helpful I explained who I was and why I was there, and they found my appointment scheduled for that day on their end. I just had to fill out some paperwork and after I was done with that and handed the paperwork that I had filled out back to the lady at the desk I went back to take my seat by Olive in her carrying crate. I was doing my best to make her feel at ease, but she kept letting off these meows here and there and the lady at the front desk grinned and asked,

“Is Olive nervous?”

“I think so,” I replied then went on explaining. “It is her first time away from her brother.”

Just then someone from the back came through the door and called for Olive and I picked up the carrying crate and followed the young woman through the door down a long narrow hallway and into an exam room. When giving them the information on Olive that they needed to know I explained that I thought that she might be pregnant and that she had already had one liter of kittens. The Vet tech then asked a few more questions and performed a few more test’s and then went to go check on something and then shortly returned and did a few more test’s. A few minutes later the vetrinarian came in and said

so I am told that Olive is here for a consultation for spaying and she might be pregnant.

Yes I replied.

Ok we are going to take her for an ultrasound and we will be right back.

It actually seemed like they were gone awhile but you never know how a cat reacts when he or she is being handled by someone other than his or her master. That is especially true for my cat’s so they probably did have to mess with her a little. It was a little bit passed fifteen minutes when the vetrinarian and the Vet tech came back into the exam room with Olive in the carrying crate

Ok well we saw that she had a full belly but there were no signs of her being Pregnant and she should be ok to get Spayeded in November so we will see you in three months and they will take care of you up front.

I thanked the Dr. and the Vet Tech and took the carrying crate with Olive in it and made my way back the long narrow hall this time in the opposite direction and went through the door that led to the lobby. They got me checked out for this vet visit and me and Olive were on our way. Everything with the preliminary vet visit seemed to really work out because the next week I found out I had gotten a job at a local warehouse, and I was very happy about it. The company that I had started with Alex and Tony was pretty much a done deal anyway and I found out some not so good stuff about Alex and so it just looked as if it was time to move on.

It was about this time last year that I had gotten up at 4:00am to go to the gym and I had just pulled out of that dark parking lot that housed my apartment complex, and my jeeps computer was showing that the engine was overheating so I immediately pulled into the episcopal church parking lot across the street. I googled what to do if your engine is overheating and came to the conclusion, I just needed to drive it back to the apartment complex but just not go any further with it. So that is what I did. I then went back inside of my apartment and decided sense I couldn’t go to the gym I might as well do my yoga so I would have energy for my shift at the warehouse this afternoon. After my yoga practice I went back to bed and woke up at 7:00am. my shift didn’t start till that afternoon but sense my jeep was not reliable for the time being I needed to think of alternative ways to get back and forth to work and to make matters even more complicated that week was Olive’s appointment to be spayed, and I couldn’t miss that. As soon as 8:00am hit I immediately reserved a rental car it was a grey Volkswagen Jetta, and the enterprise office was within walking distance, so I went walked to pick it up and then I was back in business I used the car that day for getting errands ran and going back and forth to work. Olive wasent pregnant when I took her in to Low Cost Pet Vet for her consultation before her schedueled surgrey to get fixed but it was looking like she was pregnant at the present time that Wednesday the day before her surgrey. I was on the scheduele to work a double shift that day so I was at the warehouse working that night and I was acting like I didn’t want to be there. I was acting like I didn’t want to be there because i was thinking please do not let her have kittens tonight. I mean they probably could have gone through with the surgrey if she had kittens but then that would have more than likley caused a problem with her nursing the kittens because she would have been in pain. I could have bottle fed the kittens but new born kittens prefer their mother’s milk. Not only that they would have had to be bottle according to a friend of mine that is an expert on kittens every four hours. It probably would have been ok due to the fact I was working part time at the warehouse but still I didn’t have all of this knowledge at the present time that this was going on. That night after I got home from work I cleaned out the carrying case that I had planned to take Olive to the Vetrinarian in and put a clean towel in it and just let Olive and the other cat’s roam around the apartment for the night. That next morning I got up at 5:00am and did my yoga and got myself and Olive ready for the day ahead of us. I showed up at Low Cost pet vet at 9:00 am and when I walked in the front door they already knew who I was

“Are you dropping off Olive for a spaying?” the same lady as before asked me

“Yes,” I replied

She then said, “I will let the vet tech know.” and she called the back area to let them know that Olive was here. It was a few minutes later someone arrived from the back area through the door and came to me and asked

“Is this Olive?”

Yes, I answered

“Ok we will call you this afternoon for with an update,” and just told me a few other things and then I left Olive with them and went about with my day. I was at work when I got the call from the vetrinarian clinic and they left a voicemail saying

“Just calling to give you an update on Miss Olive she is in recovery. She was definately Pregnant, we will let you know when you can pick her up.“

I was able to pick her up that next morning and when I got to the vet clinic to pick her up they were telling me.

“Don’t feed her like you usually feed her.”

(which is a lot) and, “keep her away from the other cats for a few days.”

They also gave me a bottle of pain killers for olive for about a week and a half a believe. As far as me feeding my cat’s alot it probably seems like it is a lot because two of my cats are kind of big but really I just leave food out to where they can just sort of eat when they want to and if I see there food or watter bowl empty I fill it up. I do find sometimes if I am around the house sometimes I will have to put them in their carrying crates just so I can get some things done around the house but all in all ussually I let them kind of roam and it’s easier to let them do that now in the apartment we are living in now. When I would give Olive her medications I would hold her mouth open and drop the pill in and then rub her throat downward with me index finger. If you need more guidance or more of a visual aid on how to do that just google how to give me cat it’s or his or her medication and a bunch of youtube vidoes will come up. I had to see it for myself and it put me more at ease. In the youtube video that I wateched after the person gave their cat her medication they said told her what a good girl she was.

I did this too because it made me laugh and put me at ease while I was giving Olive her medication and I think that might have put Olive at ease too. After about three days I let Olive out to walk around here and there, but I watched her like a hawk, I didn’t want her to pop an incision open. After about that next Sunday of the following week I was confident that she was ok to join the other cats. She really didn’t look like she was in a lot of pain at all. but I kept giving her the pain medication until the bottle was finished. So, to answer the big question which happens to be the title and the main idea of this blog post When is the best time to get a cat spayed or neutered. The idea for this post came to me when I had two kittens left over from Olive’s 2nd litter and for some reason, I was having problems finding homes for them and Pet Smart suggested I contact this cat rescue organization, and I did. One of their questions were have they been spayed or neutered, and I was thinking they are still relatively young cat’s still in the kitten phase. My thinking was it was good to get it done when they are in the in between phase like still a kitten but getting into that full grown phase. Like a lot of the questions, I have when I do one of these I went to google and the google AI told me that, “the best time to spay or neuter a cat is before they reach maturity. So, there would have been more than likely ok for me to get the two cats spayed and neutered before dropping them off at the cat rescue organization. My recommendation would be like I said before when they are in that in between phase but I would follow what AI said too and get it done “before they reach sexual maturity.” That way you won’t have any unwanted kittens running around. You as the cat owner would need to kind of use your judgement. I say this because What I didn’t know prior to turning to google AI on the subject is that “the right time to get a cat spayed or neutered can depend on several different things.” What I didn’t know before I googled this information is those things that it would depend on was what the veterinarian was looking at when I took Olive to her preliminary appointment. Those were the factors that the veterinarian was taking into consideration to determine if Olive was ready to be spayed and if it was safe for her.