Why male cats should be neutered

Although people can understand the logic behind spaying female cats (to stop them producing unwanted litters), they sometimes fail to grasp the importance of neutering male cats. They often feel, misguidedly, that male cats are not causing many problems but in fact apart from the obvious reason to neuter them (to prevent them fathering hundreds of kittens every year!), there are many other positive reasons to do so.

Unneutered tom cats can live miserable lives shortened by disease or death. Many toms rescued by animal welfare organisations are battle scarred from viscous fights with other toms over females. They frequently have gaping wounds, weeping abscesses, bits of ears and tails missing, eyes gouged out. It’s truly sad to see the state of some of them. Neutered male cats have no reason to fight and rarely sustain such injuries. In fact, neutering a male cat can double its life expectancy from 7 to 14 years.

Saddest of all is that an unneutered male cat is 80% more likely to contract FIV than a neutered male, there is no cure and no vaccine to prevent it.

There are other reasons why male cats should be neutered. Unneutered toms have a strong desire to wander in search of females to breed with, which places them in danger of being killed on the road or becoming lost and unable to find their way back home thus ending up living as strays trying to survive in a sometimes hostile world. Many people dislike tom cats, owned or stray, in their neighbourhood because of the smell they can leave on property, in sheds, on cars, patio doors and if they get into a house, they can spray furniture, worktops, toys, clothes, anything. People will sometimes deploy various cruel methods to get rid of them including poison and the tom cat can have a very painful death. Is that how people want their beloved male cat to end up?

Once a male cat is neutered, there is no spraying and no smell, they are more pleasant to have around, people are more tolerant of them.

Another reason why owners should neuter their male cats is to free up precious space in rescues taken up by lost tom cats, for other more needy animals. Rescues can spend a huge amount of time and effort trying to find new homes for stray toms who already have a home somewhere which, if they had been neutered, they might not have left in the first place.

These are the many reasons why male cats should be neutered. Neutering means no smell, no spraying, no wandering, no fighting, so less likely to become lost, contract FIV, get killed on the road or die from poisoning, starvation or infection. Most important of all, neutered males are not adding to the feline over population crisis already in Ireland. They can enjoy a longer healthier life. That's a lot of good reasons to neuter male cats!