I have. It is “apparently” coming from Europe, where “apparently” vets are refusing to spay/neuter. I was also told “it is illegal!” in Europe to s/n without medical reasons. I blocked that idiot after saying she was one, at which point she called me “rude”.
Well, in 15 years living here in the country the one neighbors stud colt went through the fence and covered the ex gf of the guy who lived here’s mare, resulted in a vet visit and bad feelings, and the mom of one of my daughters friends was given a horse for her own, turned out to be a package deal and didnt really end well. Not to mention the jack donkey that went visiting regularly for about three years, also causing bad feelings. Not a whole lot of planning, more like costs money and can’t be bothered.
Dogs or horses?
I have heard that there are some areas in Europe that considered restricting spay/neuter dogs but if I am correct it was overturned quickly after unwanted pregnancies rose. I’ll have to try to remember where I read that.
Definitely owners are asked to consider waiting until dogs are more mature before spay/neuter now but I don’t really know that I’ve heard of non-breeding quality dogs being intact for life. (Aka vets recommending that pet owners keep their dogs and bitches intact.) and certainly it is not recommended for females. Even breeding bitches are spayed after their last litter.
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Dogs. The poster was quite condescending about this “horrifying trend” of neutering and spaying, and she would NEVER EVER EVER let her poor baby rescue (he was a RESCUE!! A RESCUE!) dog ever be subjected to such butchery.
She has like three big dogs in an inner city London flat, all intacta because: EUROPE.
Cray cray.
We neutered ours at 2 and our bitch will be spayed at 1.
Yes, obviously it happens. I didn’t say it doesn’t, I said it doesn’t tend to result in “1000s of unwanted animals being put down”, and is not a leading cause of how horses get to slaughter. There’s WAY too much purposeful breeding going on, of horses who’s parents even should never have been bred, by “foal mill” people who literally turn their GTS stallions out with their band of “wish you’d spay them” mares and sell them cheap.
Yep, they exist, and it can also be cultural. Lots of places in Europe rarely geld stallions BUT they’re also a lot better equipped to handle stallions because, well, everyone has them LOL
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Blockquote:open_mouth:
South of the American border, few stallions of good breeding get gelded either, unless they are too aggressive for even macho men to handle. However, like in Europe, the facilities are set up for that.
It is only Anglo America that seems to not understand how to handle stallions. Not to say the average Jane or Joe should have one at all. Breeding farms in Europe, Latin and South America are set up like military bootcamps for horses.
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Well, I have read that some European zoos (do or did) breed their animals because having offspring is part of the full experience of these animals’ lives. But many of the babies could not be housed by the zoo and were not needed for species preservation so they were put down.
I see a philosophical link between this focus on natural behavior in zoo animals, and allowing household pets to remain intact through their life.
I googled, and found this 8-year-old article from PBS (an opinion piece by an anthropology professor with an American view on this). A zoo director quoted in the article: “In Copenhagen Zoo we let the animals breed naturally. With naturally we mean that they will get young within the same intervals as they would in the wild. That means that the animals get to carry out their natural behaviours.”
Of course, similar to the opinion writers’ feelings about worrying about natural breeding while keeping zoo animals in artificial surroundings, it seems to me that if you are not going to let animals (pets) breed as they would in nature, it is silly to then argue that neutering is unnatural. But then, I grew up in an American milieu.
It’s a horrible practice to allow “nature to take its course” if the result is just going to be to euth the offspring 
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I think people forget how taxing and dangerous reproduction is, especially for the females of the species. (Though males have their risks, too)
All the energy put into reproduction is part of the reasons animals have shorter lifespans in the wild than in captivity.
Have you ever tried to keep weight on a field stallion in a huge herd?
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Well, or introduce predators and let them kill the offspring.
I think people forget about that part too - people talk about “hybrid vigor” in dog breeding, forgetting all about the “survival of the fittest” part of natural selection. That means that the weak, meek or stupid ones get killed or eaten. When that isn’t allowed to happen, “hybrid vigor” doesn’t exist.
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