what's the difference between getting a cat spayed/neutured and fixed?

Question

i THOUGHT i knew what it meant. but then the guy at the shelter confused me.

Answer 1

Females get spayed and males get neutered. Getting an animal fixed or altered is a gender neutral term meaning the same thing. Either way they can no longer breed.

Answer 2

"Fixing" is a nickname for either spay or neuter surgery.

Spaying is the surgery for females. It's like a hysterectomy in humans. In a spay, the uterus and the ovaries are removed.

Neutering is the term most often used for the surgery for males. It's also called "castration". In this surgery, the testicles are removed and the vas deferens is tied off (ligated). The term "neutering" can TECHNICALLY be used for either spay or castration, but most people use the term neutering to describe castration-- maybe because a lot of folks find "castration" to be kind of scary to think about (especially guys!).

"Fixing" applies to either procedure, and the end result is the same: no unwanted parenting, and fewer behavior and health problems. The following describes the spay procedure for a dog. It's very similar for cats:

The spay protocol should include a pre-surgical exam followed by injections of a muscle-relaxer such as Rompun and a short- acting barbiturate to allow insertion of a tube into the dog’s airway for air and anesthesia. When the dog is incapacitated by the barbiturate, a clamp is used to hold the mouth open and the tube is installed. The dog may be initially anesthetized with one gas and switched to another (such as isofluorane) for the surgery.

Preparation of the surgical area is done by a technician while the veterinarian dresses and scrubs for the surgery. The technician shaves the surgical site, expresses urine from the dog’s bladder, and uses betadine scrub to clean and rinse the site. The veterinarian uses a sterile scrub pack and scrubs his hands and arms just as a surgeon does before an operation.

The anesthetized dog is placed on her back on the operating table or in a tray that is placed on the table. The tray keeps the dog from sliding and gives the doctor clearer access to the abdomen. The needle (or IV catheter) used to inject the barbiturate is left in the vein in case more drug is needed.

The anesthesia is switched to isofluorane, which can be increased or decreased if necessary to lighten or deepen the dog’s anesthetized state. Injectable anesthesias can be stopped but cannot be reversed; if the dog gets in trouble on the operating table with an injectable anesthesia, she can die.

The dog is hooked to a heart monitor. The sterile surgical pack of instruments is placed within the doctor’s reach.Then the surgery can begin.

The surgery starts when the veterinarian clamps the skin to stretch it taut and begins the incision with a scalpel. The incision must be done carefully to minimize muscle damage.

The dog’s uterus is a Y-shaped organ with two horns and a body. The uterine body and horns and the ovaries and the tubes connecting the ovaries to the horns are removed in a complete ovariohysterectomy. The doctor uses disolvable sutures for the cuts at the ovaries and the cervix, checks for any abnormalities, bleeders, etc., and closes the incision with layers of stitches.

Time elapsed from start of surgery to the last stitch that closes the incision is about 25 minutes on bitches that have never come into oestrus ("heat"). Females that have had one or more seasons or one or more litters and those that carry a lot of abdominal fat can take much longer. Add to this the time for pre-surgical exam and preparation, post-surgical observation, a post-surgical exam if necessary, and removal of stitches, and the cost to safely spay a beloved pet to prevent unwanted litters, reproductive cancers, and uterine infections is a bargain.

In cats, the males have a much easier go of it. For neutering, the scrotal area is scrubbed and shaved. The cat is also under anesthesia as described above. The vet makes a small incision in the scrotum (sac) and removes each testicle. S/he then ligates (ties off) the blood supply and the vas deferens (spermatic cord). The whole procedure from cut to close takes less than 10 minutes, assuming both testes have descended as they should. In most cat neuters, the incision is very tiny, and many vets may allow the incision to heal on its own with no closure needed. The vet I work for sometimes uses surgical glue if the cat was, uh, "well endowed", and we have had VERY, VERY few problems with it. Occasionally, a cat might have one or both testes retained in the abdomen. This is called "cryptorchidism". In these cases, the surgery is more involved and requires an abdominal incision similar to that done for a spay.

Hope that clears thing up and also gives some insight into what the surgery REALLY is about-- not the barnyard version!

Answer 3

The guy at the shelter was probably playing with your head. Getting an animal fixed is the same as getting it spayed/neutered, which for cats will stop a lot of bad behavior. Males won't spray everything in sight, and females loose the urge to run away and come back a couple of weeks later with a uterus full of kittens.

Answer 4

There are TOO many people in this world who don't understand this. I'm sorry you were confused by someone who should know better.

A FEMALE is spayed (which means her uteris and overies are removed).

A MALE is neutered (which means they remove the testicles--also known in slang as the "balls" or "nuts" or "sacs" or whatever else you may want to call them).

Either way, the animal is being "fixed" or surgically sterilized.

And for people who think it's a bad thing to do to an animal--take into consideration ONE dog and the average litter of 7. Within 6 years that ONE dog and all her puppies, if they are never fixed and have the average size litter, will add up to 670,000 (that's six hundred seventy THOUSAND) more dogs.

Please have your animal spayed or neutered!

Answer 5

When you neuter a male, you split the scrotum, on each side, and remove the testicle, placing clamps or sutures to prevent bleeding. If you look closely at the male cats, some of them still have the scrotal sac, especially if they were neutered at an older age.

When you spay a female, you pull out the female organs, ovaries, uterus, and clamp them off and remove, performing an ovariohystrectomy.

As almost everyone else has said, "fixed" is just a general term.

Answer 6

Getting your cat or dog spayed/neutered is some times a good thing. If you cat is a pure bread then I would leave it a lone. But if you get it done a small age for the cat (males only) the don't spray all over the place.

Answer 7

1.Neutering a cat - castration in the male (removal of the testes), and spaying the female (removal of the ovaries and uterus

2. Fixing a cat is either neutering or spaying, see number 1.

That's what I got out of it hehe, hope it helps!

Answer 8

Neutered could mean the de-sexing of either a male or a female. Spay means an ovarian-hysterectomy ( removing the ovaries and the uterus) so it is used regarding females. Fixed could be used for either. Castration is for males ( most people use "neutered" because there is a stigma to the word castration).

Answer 9

They're different terms for the same thing - namely, rendering the animal unable to reproduce. The term 'spay' is usually used for females; 'neuter' usually refers to males but could technically be used for either gender. 'Fixed' is a slang term, as in "I'm going to fix his problem." Actually in a sense you're getting the cat broken.

Answer 10

Fixed is a general term. Females get spayed and males get neutered.