View in Incognito to get past paywall.<p>I’ve always just assumed de-sexing pets to be appropriate for pets but this piece suggests there are very real health consequences to messing with sex organs in pets. Reminds me of the very real effects that birth control has on women in my life. These products control hormones which influence how our bodies grow. Some people’s acne flair up, others have wild changes in their psyche, some gain a lot of fat, others gain a lot of muscle. I’ve even seen immune systems get much worse since starting birth control. Seeing the effects on dogs makes me wonder of birth control will have longer term effects on women around joints, tendons, bone, and muscle health even beyond what they experience day-by-day.
The inconvenient truth is that the push for spaying and neutering was simply to curb an exploding pet population that resulted in animals being put down. That’s it. America has a horrible history of pet ownership.<p>I elected to leave my dogs intact and every single time I visit the vet they try to convince me to spay. Vets seem to be brainwashed into it. They say it prevents some cancers. I tell them it’s linked to other cancers. They don’t have an argument, to be honest.<p>It’s an elective and unnecessary surgery.