I just got home from my doctor’s appointment. While there, the nurse took blood to test me for all sorts of late-term pregnancy things. One of them was toxoplasmosis (again). We got on the subject of cats. I told here we have three then I corrected myself. I got so used to saying three, I just said it! I said, well, we did have three. We had to say goodbye to one last week. She gasped. And said she can’t imagine saying goodbye to her cat that she loves her so much, etc.

She has a girl kitty. The girl kitty isn’t fixed and goes into heat every other month. Her cat is four. I have to say, in all my time spent with cats, I haven’t spent much time around an animal that wasn’t already fixed. She said she freaks out and acts possessed when it happens. I asked her if she was planning to breed her and she said no. She said she doesn’t want to fix her because she doesn’t want her to become obese.

Is that common? I know so little about cats that aren’t fixed. Do girl cats have a tendency to blimp up if they’re fixed? Are there ways to stop such a thing from happening? Certainly there are. Just wondering if anyone has any insight. I am in the dark here entirely.

(But I’ll see her again in two weeks, so maybe I could bring her some news…)

OH MY GOD. NOT SPAYED.

OK. I was once skeptical about spaying an indoor cat who had no risk of getting pregnant.

I WAS HORRIBLY WRONG.

If a female cat is not spayed, she will eventually get a uterine infection that will kill her. It’s called pyometra. I had to deal with this when my girl was about four. I finally took her to the vet when she was looking drunk and hiding under the sofa. The vets said the infection was near fatal… I was lucky that I brought her in when I did.

If you don’t want your cat to get fat, monitor her diet. STILL SPAY HER. It will prolong her life and improve the quality of life for both of you. No annoying heat periods. No obnoxious mewling and humping guests. No ooze. Most important, no uterine infection. Cats have very short vaginal canals, and bacteria gets in there VERY easily. Please, I mean it, do not wait. You can spare your cat so much difficulty.

As far as I know, that is partially true because of hormonal issues. However, from what our vet told us, it is far more dangerous to not spay a female cat because each heat cycle they go through increases their risk of breast, uterine and ovarian cancers. Also, as someone who has lived through far more of Kali’s heat cycles than I wish we had to, I can say with absolute certainty that a spayed cat is a happier cat and a better companion.

Kali has had a heart murmur since birth, and before any vet would spay her, we first had to take her for an echocardiogram so they could check on the location and severity of the murmur. Unfortunately, Dub’s health issues were more urgent, and that didn’t leave me enough money to have the echo done and get Kali spayed until she was a few years old. And because of the existence of the murmur, she was never insurable. So we just had to wait.

Our vet here was able to do the echo for less money than our vet in Boston (a couple hundred dollars makes a huge difference), and once it was determined that her murmur was very mild, and in a location that had no impact on how well her heart works, we were able to go ahead with the spay.

Because she had gone through several heat cycles already, we had a bit of a difficult recovery – her hormones were basically haywire and she got EXTREMELY aggressive with Dub. I made the mistake of getting between them once and got attacked myself – long story which I’ll have to tell sometime elsewhere. :)

Her hormonal issues did finally resolve after a week or so with the help of some NutriCalm supplements and by gradually reintroducing the cats to each other. And while she is slighly plumper than she was pre-spay, she is absolutely a happier cat now. In fact, I think she has actually gotten more affectionate and friendly.

I think the most important thing to insure that ANY pet doesn’t get obese is to feed them the best diet you can, play with them and make sure they get enough exercise. And of course, regular checkups are important, too, to monitor for things like thyroid problems and diabetes that may cause weight issues. :)

jenblossom, you have a kitty named “kali” as well? we should compare notes! I’m not sure if my email is available thru my profile, and i’m reluctant to post it in an open forum, but i’d love to chat!

Yes! You can reach me at jen at jenblossom dot com :)

Seven, my girl who had pyometra, is also pretty aggressive. In hindsight, she was getting sick when my boyfriend and his cat moved in. We kept them in separate rooms, but one day Seven wriggled through my legs and jumped Tigger and the fur went FLYING. I grabbed her (dumb!!) to save Tigger, and still have big scars from what she did to me. I never attributed it to hormones – never really thought about it…

The dynamic I think I’ve observed in my household (4 cats, 3 female, one male, all fixed) is that whomever has compromised health and isn’t feeling well is at the bottom of the pecking order. Boris and Kali tussle. Kali picks on Seven. When Pearl doesn’t feel good, Seven picks on her. When Boris or Kali aren’t feeling well, Seven picks on them too. If everybody’s healthy, Kali bugs Seven and Boris and Pearl are still mortally terrified of Seven. Weird, weird.

I try and reason with mine, “Why are you fighting? You’re the same species! Be nice!” Like they’re going to listen to me. It’s very annoying. The thing is, I think Tucker wants to play. He’s not a malicious cat. But Pookum wants to kill him, drive him out, send him away packing. I wish there was some way to get them to reason with one another. :]

I try and get them high and that only makes them drool some.