It's Maria's MutS and Stuff. What a great idea on iHeartRadio. Welcome to
Maria's Mutts and Stuff. And with me is doctor Phil Bushby is the Mississippi
State University College, a veterinary medicine. He's a veterinary professional, and I
believe he's a trailblazer and I need to ask you about that. So welcome
and I'm looking forward to chatting with you today. All right, Well,
I'm excited to do this. Yeah, so you have I've read that you
are a trailblazer when it comes to the spae and newter in of our of
our pets, especially cats. So tell me how did that all begin?
How did it all begin for you? Oh? A long time ago.
I graduated veterinary school in nineteen seventy two. The the veterinary curriculum did not
talk at all about head over population. In four years in the veterinary school,
we never visited an animal shelter. Really, wow, Okay, I
don't recall euthanasia in animal shelters as being ever discussed. You know, we
might we might spend three or four more hours of lecture on kidney failure in
cats or congestive heart failures in dogs. But we were ignoring the fact that
the largest killer of dogs and cats in the United States at the time was
euthanasian shelters because of pedover population, right, And apparently that and stuck out
to you. That really was like layer. Yeah, well it was only
blaring as I was able to look back at it because I went through veterinary
school completely ignorant of an issue of peed over population or overcrowding of shelters or
euthanasia for space. I was unaware, completely unaware. But I did an
internship at Henryburg Memorial Hospital of the ASPCA in New York City when and at
that time, this is early nineteen seventies, the ASPCA in New York City
was also animal control for all all five boroughs, right, which today city
Right today it's really separate, correct, right, But at the time it
wasn't. Yeah. And so the wake up call was that in the year
of my internship, the animal shelter at henry Berg euthanized over one hundred and
thirty thousand dogs and cats in one year. Wow. I do not recall
if they euthanized on weekends, wow, right, Yeah, but if they
didn't that was over five hundred animals a day. Yeah, that's five days
a week. Yeah, five days a week, fifty two weeks of the
year. Wake up call. The most light threatening condition that a dog or
cat could have in the United States was being in an unplanned litter of puppies
with no home right or litter of kittens with no home right. And so
I progressed through my career and I became Boardsird five in surgery, but that
number of euthanasias never left me. And so having done all the having done
Mefer level surgeries and this type of thing, there was this constant pull back
to the largest killer of dogs and cats in the country, and that being
euthanasia because of head over population right in the in the in the early nineties.
You know, now we're I'm twenty years out from veterinary school, when
I'm I'm still haunted by this number. And in the early so in the
early nineties, I actually had an administrative position at the College of Vedinary Medicine
and was not really doing referral levels much at all during that administrative position,
but I had an opportunity to begin taking veterinary students to an animal shelter in
the next town over the animal The Animal Shelter in Columbus, Mississippi, had
a small surgical suite in it, and so I could take students over there.
I was. They were third year students, third year veterinary students.
I would take them into the shelter. They would see how overcrowded a small
shelter in southeastern United States was, and we would do space and neuters.
I would scrub in with them. The students would do the surgeries and it
was a positive experience for everyone. The students loved having the surgical experience.
They saw the conditions in the shelters. We were able to do it without
any charge to the shelter, and so it was you know, it was
there was win for the students, it was win for the animals, and
it was win for the shelter. Yeah, win went all around, sure,
and and slowly over over the years that program has grown and grown and
grown. We now have a our shelter program at the Mississippi State University College
of Vene. Medicine has three different courses in the veterinary curriculum right, two
of which are elective, one of which is a required course. But in
the in the elective. The first elective is for junior students. Our our
our first and second year students are in the classroom and laboratories. Our third
and fourth year students are in clinical rotations. Our basic surgery labs are in
the second year of the curriculum, which is in most schools it's the third
right, and they're all modeled after Spain Looter. The students, the sophomore
students in their basic surgery labs are doing space and castrations on shelter animals,
with those animals going back to the shelters for adoption. And then in the
third year of our curriculum, we have a it's a short one week elective
that students can rotate through the local animal shelter. They're involved in routine intake
exams, routine medical care of patients in the shelter, involved in health certificates,
health evaluation and health certificates for animals being prepared for transport, and they're
involved in Spain neuter not only of shelter animals, but of pets of low
income families. All right, that's that's a one week elective. Just the
statistics for the last six months of last year. The junior students in that
elective average doing sixteen surgeries during each student doing on average sixteen surgeries doing that
one week rotation. When when a third year student is doing surgeries, a
faculty member is scrubbed in with them. The student does the surgery with the
faculty member guiding, assisting, stopping them from doing something crazy or helping them
out when they do do something crazy. Right, in the senior year of
the curriculum, there is a required two week shelters, a newter rotation.
Every student in the curriculum goes through that. They spend two weeks. The
senior students when they're doing surgeries, they're supervised, but they are but no
one is scrubbed in with them. They are doing the surgeries on their own.
The senior the senior students average uh fifty five surgeries during that two week
rotation unassisted them doing you know, doing it on their own. And then
and also in the senior year, there is a third a third course.
Uh. It's a it's an elective course. It's an advanced clinical rotation in
the shelter. It's it's a two week long rotation that in some respects is
a repeat of the junior rotation, but at a much higher level. And
what I mean by that, when there's an animal in the shelter that has
a broken leg that needs to be fixed, that senior student is going to
be involved. In fact, most likely would be the primary surgeon repairing that
broken leg, an animal that needs a new creation or a femo headosteectomy.
Not only are these senior students doing routine health maintenance and medical care of patients
in the shelter and health certificates and stay newter, but they're getting involved in
the more advanced surgical procedures that shelters frequently need as well. Sure, I
guess, I guess the trail break blazing component of all this I would I
would argue that there's two components. One is, our students are getting more
hands on surgical experience than probably any other veterinary school and any other veterinary students
in the world. They graduate not only competent, but confident their surgical skills.
Yeah, that's very important actually. And then the second trail blazing thing
of this is we've been able to do it all with grants and donations.
Our college pays the salaries. Most of the salaries of the faculty and staff
that work in this program, but all of the procedures are funded either by
grants or so there is no charge to the shelters we work with. And
currently we're working with twenty six different shelters and rest your groups in the in
the state. And there is no charge to those rescue groups. Well,
that's wonderful. So so let me just yeah, let me ask I mean,
that's that's that's incredible. And because spaying and neutering is just such a
big and like probably the most important thing to do with your pet. Do
other universities have the same type of program or not as what can I say,
expansive as yours is? Because I feel like if every university, veterinary
university had the same type of program, I think our Spain neuter problem in
this country would be pretty insignificant instead of at the number that it's at.
Well, I think I think no one is, no, none of the
other veterani schools address it quite the same the same way. Right, We
do have the advantage in the way our curriculum is constructed. The basic surgery
labs are in the second year of the curriculum and not the third and the
third and fourth years of our curriculum are all clinical rotations, and so we
get our students into the clinics a year earlier than many of the other veterinary
schools, and certainly earlier than all of them, but a full year earlier
than many. So our students are getting hands on experience, more hands on
experience with you than with other adams. Yes, obviously a significant part of
that, in the part that I'm involved in is the hands on surgical experience
with space and newters. I suspect that every veterinary school has. You know,
the days of never mentioning animal shelters and never talking about ped over population
are probably over in the veterinary schools. I don't think. I don't think
any any of the veterinary schools do it to the level we do right right
now now, there are there are veterinary schools that do a better job than
we do from the standpoint of working with shelters on the medical care. You
know, I'm I'm fans of UH. I'm a fan of the shelter program
at Florida UH, and that UC Davis a veterinary school, MH. But
there their emphasis is much more preventive care and medical care, where our emphasis
is much more preventing unwanted litters, getting animals, you know, intact animals
and shelters, getting them spade and newted, which is for many of those
animals, is the ticket to getting them into a home. Sure, sure,
I mean, I just feel like it's such a simple solution, and
I'm kind of surprised that other VET schools aren't doing the same type of program,
Like it's almost like a no brainer to me being on the outside looking
in. Well, it is, but I think you have to you have
to recognize that I started doing this in early nineties, So we're thirty years
in and it wasn't like one day we turned to switch and we had this
program right. This program, this program has evolved from an infancy in the
early nineties to a more a maturity directed towards spain neuter thirty years later.
Sure, but there are a lot of along that pathway to get us to
where we are now. Right, So, I think I think it'd be
safe to say most of the other veterinary schools are on the same pathway.
I think we just started started right, right. No, that makes sense,
and that's I mean, and to me that that's key because that,
to me is just such a such a big problem with people not spaying or
neutering their pets. And many times, and I get it, they don't
have access to affordable spaying or neutering, so you know, yeah, yeah,
So let me put something to perspective because I know that one of the
focuses of this discussion, and we're having this discussion because this is feline fixed
by five months. Yes, I was going to ask you about the first
shelter that I started working with in the early nineties. When we first started
going, they would not allow us to and neuter animals under six months of
age. This is thirty years ago, but this was the chair of the
board of the shelter and there was a veterinarian on the board of the shelter,
both of which were absolutely opposed to stay neuter younger than six months of
age. And so the first few years we were doing all the adults and
none of the puppies and none of the kittens were being spayed and neutered.
And then a shift in the manager, the day to day manager of the
shelter, and I met with that person and said, you know this is
crazy. If we really want to have an impact, we need to be
spaying the puppies and kittens. We can do this as young as six to
eight weeks of age, and we should be doing it on all animals prior
to adoption. That manager bought that argument totally, and so we sometimes it's
easier to get forgiveness and permission, and so we we simply started doing it
right. And then some time later, I mean just a matter of weeks,
Uh, there was a board meeting for the shelter, and so we
went to that board meeting and reported what we were doing. And the veterinarian
on the board quit being on the board, and the chair of the board
resigned from the board because we were spaying in animals, spaying and neutering animals
so young. The thing the thing to realize. And this is where this
is where the debate comes in about is it appropriate to spay and newt prior
to six months of age? I'd say from the eighties to two thoy ten,
that's a guess. Virtually every virtually every veterinary school was teaching wait until
six months, even at Mississippi State University faculty. And I'm on the faculty
obviously, but faculty, we're teaching wait until six months, and yet I'm
taking students out and we're doing it in six weeks, okay. And so
the profession had standardized six months or older as the appropriate age to spay or
new either dogs or cats. They're been having graduated in nineteen seventy two,
I'd watched the veterinary profession go from recommending that, you know, there's a
reason the estimates for the number of animals euthanized in the early seventies was between
fifteen and twenty two million a year. Is at that time they were recommending
that animals have a litter first before you spay or newt to them, right,
I've heard that, yeah, And then then that was modified to let
them have one heat cycle first, right, right, And then then then
that was modified to six months of age, and the profession kind of collaced
around six months of age is the appropriate age? Right? Right, There's
never been any research whatsoever the sports six months as the appropriate age for spee
neuter you, if you want to judge it around the reproductive cycle, is
your is your intent? In Spain neuter predominantly to prevent reproduction and if it
is. If it is, we have to address the fact that cats can
come Female cats can come into heat as young as four months of age.
A female cat can have and gestation period is essentially two months long. A
female cat can have a litter of kittens by the time it's six months,
yeah, and a half months of so picking it's almost like reach into a
hat and pick out a number. Oh, the number is six. Let's
do it at six. No research support as that's the ideal time. You
know, small breed dogs can come into heat before six months of age,
or larger breed dogs come into heat later. So six months of age is
an arbitrary number that profession coalesced around and is what was taught. Right,
So virtually virtually every veterinarian graduating from veterinary school from say nineteen seventy five the
two thousand was taught you have to wait until there's six months of age.
So the majority of veterinarians out there are simply doing what they were taught correct.
And oh, by the way, if you have questions about when you
should spay or new to your pet, who do you ask? You ask
your veterinarian question your local veterinarian was taught six months of age, and so
that is permea permeated. The whole concept is permeated society as six months of
age is the appropriate age, and there is no research that supports back right,
and so this radical idea of you know, back in mid nineties of
Spain and neutering six to eight week old puppies uh caused a veterinarian to resign
from the board of the shelter I was working with, and and and the
chair of the board to resign. They just walked out in a huff,
amazing because they thought it was so wrong, right, right, and yet
and yet, especially in cats. You know, the dog world has gotten
a little bit confused. And we could do we could do a whole podcast
on my analysis of the research that most of which has come out of UC
Davis Veterinary School and the flaws and that research. But if we if we
put pushed dogs to the side right now and focus on cat, right,
we can do the dogs on another episode. We can do that, an
absolutely, I would love to if we If we focus on cats, we
start with this premise female cats can come into heat as young as four months
of age all right, they are sexually mature prior to six months of age.
And there are no studies, zero studies in cats that document adverse medical
consequences or behavioral consequences from spading and neutering as young as six to eight weeks
none so AB American Vetteranu Medical Association, BAHA, American Animal Hospital Association,
Association of Feline Practitioners, Association of Shelter Veterinarians. Four major professional veterinary associations
have all endorsed the concept put out by in twenty sixteen by the Task Force
on Feline Sterilization that ultimately results in this fee line six by five campaign.
Four major veterinary associations, fourteen state veterinary medical associations have endorsed the whole concept
behind stay nuter of cats prior to five months of age. Where it gets
a little bit confused, maybe, where it gets a little bit confused in
the shelter environment. We're saying they and neuter prior to adoption. Uh,
And if you're adopted out at eight weeks of age, spay or neuter between
six and eight weeks of age. We we don't recommend that for owned puppies
and kittens for for a very logical reason which seems to confuse a lot of
people. Right, do you own a puppy or kitten, all right,
and that puppy kitten is in your household. That household is a pretty safe
environment from the standpoint of the risk of being associated with any infectious diseases.
Right, do you take that puppy or kitten to an environment where the risk
is great? Right? Meaning an animal hospital. Sure, the risk of
the risk of an animal being to an infectious disease is much greater in an
animal hospital than it is at home. All right, So what we recommend
our own animals is, yes, take the animal to the veterinarian for the
vaccination series, and you routine vaccination and parasite control, but don't hospitalize that
patient, that puppier kitten at that age. Let the puppier kitten get all
the way through the vaccination series, which usually is over by sixteen weeks of
age, and then once they're fully vaccinated, then you set the next appointment.
A lot of veterinarians set up their vaccinations and parasite control appointments at two
or three week intervals. So you've been taking your puppier kitten to the veterinarian
every two or three weeks, since it was six weeks, since you got
it at six to seven or seven weeks of age. And so let's say
it's let's say it's you get the puppy, it's seven seven weeks of age,
and your veterinarian says every three weeks, so it's seven weeks, it's
in thet it goes to the clinic for vaccinations. It's ten weeks. It
goes for vaccinations and parasite control for thirteen weeks, vaccinations and parasite control for
sixteen weeks, vaccinations and parasite controls. It's finished its vaccination series. One
more appointment, nineteen weeks. Now it's safe. That animal is fully vaccinated.
Now it's safe to hospitalize that animal for the day for the shade neuter.
And you've still gotten it's spader neutered before five months of age. Right
in the shelter environment, that's a different world than home, and the largest,
the greatest risk of infectious disease for a puppy or kitten is to stay
in that shelter environment. All right, and the shelter is vaccinating too.
But these animals are constantly exposed to the risk of bacterial enviral diseases. So
what you want to do is get them out of the shelter environment and into
people's homes. And the ticket for getting them out of the shelter environment and
into people's homes is getting it spaid or neutered. So we push the spady
neuter in the shelter environment as young as six eight weeks of age, and
we push it in the for the owned pets two between four and five months
of age. Both of those are logical recommendations for the health and safety of
the pet, right, but the PS two, all of that is for
me. In the animal welfare animal rescue world, we prefer that people get
their their pets from a shelter or rescue so right, because you know,
adopt the shop, don't go to pets store because that's puppy mills and everything
else, and why even bother going to a breeder when the shelters are filled.
So and not to take away from the different timetable if it's home or
it's shelter. But you know, most shelters won't adopt out a pet unless
it's already spade or neutered. And that's yeah, yeah, and that's if
they're adopted. If they're adopting about reproductively intact, they're simply digging their whole
defense because three months later or six months later, they're going to get a
litter of kitten, correct, litter of puppies. Right, So we adopt
out this, we adopted out this, we're just helping kitten or this playful
active puppy, and six months later we get fixed back in return. Exactly.
It cuts the opposite of what a shelter, right, Yes, avit
spade or mooted before it goes out of the door. Yeah, And over
time we will know the current estimates, and all we have is estimates,
current estimates. The current estimates are that now in twenty twenty something, we're
euthanizing one point five million dogs and cats a year in shelters, and it
was ten times that or more fifty years ago when I graduated veterinary school.
So we've made tremendous progress in several fronts. One is in educating people about
the importance of spee neoter and in providing access to spay neoter. Well,
that's to me is more key is the access for people. Yeah, well,
very important people. People buy the idea. Now it's just a whole
lot of them can't afford it, correct, Yeah, And so then you
get into the whole realm of low cost you know, high quality, high
buying, low cost paying hooter clinics, which in the nineties were absolutely controversial.
The profession was fighting them, and now they've pretty much realized that,
you know, the practicing veterinarians out there aren't going to lose a client they
never had, right, And if I can't take if I'm living on a
six to eight hundred dollars Social Security check per year, per month, I'm
not going to take my new puppy to a veterinarian and spend five hundred dollars
spade. You know that's afford it and eighty percent of my income. Yeah,
you're right. So I think the profession is bought into the concept that
these low cost space neuter clinics do do quality work, and I have not
putting them out of The private practitioners out of business busier now than they ever
made. We're sure weren't as busy as they are right now. Sure,
Well, let me ask you this for those because there there's always the naysayers
in any situation, and I've had arguments with people over this when and I'm
sure you have heard about people who refuse to spay or neuter their cat or
dog and their reasoning is it causes more health problems in the animal, which
I don't believe. But I'm not you know, I'm a civilian. I
don't have a vet background. What do you say when you hear people say
that, Well, other than put my hair out, I don't have much
of that, yes, but you know you know what I mean, right,
You've heard that from people. Absolutely. Yeah. The the literature and
again more in dogs. The literature has gotten confused over the last ten years
because of some of the articles that have been published on what I believe is
pretty weak research. But you know, the sad reality is things are published
online now and you know they're not true. If it's on the internet,
it must be true, you know. And so everybody everybody before they talked
to the veterinarian, they talked at doctor Google and leave was some misinformation.
But there there are several studies that have looked at the impact of early Spade
Newter. By early, I mean as young as six to eight weeks of
age in cats, and none of them, none of the studies have come
up with conditions that are more prevalent because an animal with spade under five months
of age. None of them all right, And what's so often missing in
this dialogue, it's the fact that the larger the animal is and the older
the animal is, the longer the surgery takes, the more difficult the surgery
takes. A a spay in a two pounds or three pound can we gold
kitten is so much easier and so much faster than in a six to eight
pound six month kitten. Hat the surgery, the anesthetic times or less,
the surgical times are less, the incidence of hemorrhage is less, recovery times
are faster, and so there's no zero in my professional opinion, there is
zero reason I won't even talk about h doing a spee or neuter at six
to eight weeks as early age. I talk about doing a spay or neuter
at six months of age being delayed. There is no reason to delay the
surgery until the animal is older and larger and the surgery is more difficult and
takes longer. There's no reason, especially in cats, and in dogs there
may be a few slightly valid arguments occasionally, but not many cats. In
cats, there are no reasons to delay spae neuter past five months of age.
Right, No, so here here, here, here are specific arguments
people have made. Well, in male cats, it predisposes to urinary obstruction.
Well, that was disproven in the nineties. Their their, their theory.
We shouldn't say this because now someone's going to listen to only this sentence
in the podcast and use it. But their theory is you castrate a castrate
a cat before it's sexually mature, the penis is smaller, the urethra is
smaller, predisposed us to urinary obstruction. Well, there was a research study
in the nineties that looked at urethral diameters and urethel pressures in intact male cats,
male cats, male cats castrated at seven months of age and male cats
castrated at seven weeks of age and found zero difference. All right, So
so their basic premise, which makes them think that urethral obstruction might be more
common, is false. Right, then there's been a lot of research looking
at predisposing factors that contribute to your retel obstruction in male cats. Several research
papers out there, not a single one of them comes to the conclusion that
early, earlier castration predisposed us to reteal obstruction. I mean, I could
pull out a reference list and read read your six or eight research articles that
have all looked at what are the things that predisposed cats to mail cats to
retel obstruction, and none of those articles mentioned early castration. None of them
there. Another argument is and here the basic premise is correct, right,
Removing sex hormones estrogens from females and testosterone from males causes a slight delay in
the closure of growth plates. Right. The reason we get taller as we
grow up is there are growth plates in all of our long bones that continue
to grow until a certain age. For people, that age is usually around
seventeen eighteen years of age before those growth plates close, and in tats it's
usually closer to nine to twelve months of age. And removing the sex hormones,
if you will, causes a slight delay. Right. So if you
are if you are really really concerned that your cat might be a half a
centimeter taller, my god, don't have them castrated, worse trade until after
they were a year of age, but there's been no clinical significance in the
cat. Zero documented clinical significance of that delay. One of the things in
dogs is there may be some clinical significance in some cases, but in cats
there's none. And virtually every argument that people come up with as to some
condition that might be more common if the animal is castrated, it's false in
the cat, you know, but then then then okay, what about what
about if you delay? Well, the third most common tumor in cats is
memory neoplasia. Ninety six of memory neoplasias are malignant. The life expectancy of
a cat once it's been diagnosed with memory neoplasia, whether the cat is treated
or not, on averages less than a year, and the incidence of memory
neoplasia jumps rises as soon as that cat has had one heat cycle. So
yes, say it before it ever has that heat cycle. You significantly reduced
the chances of memory neoplasia. So people like to stop going to doctor Google
on the Internet to get their information, or or at least if they go
to doctor Google. I would I would really support don't go to doctor Google,
right, But but if you do go to doctor Google, Google,
recognize that d O G. Does not not spell cat. And and most
of the negative literature out there on doctor Google is about d o DS correct.
Well, yeah, and and and so again we could we could have
a podcast later on the whole issue. We will. Yeah, that and
that and that will get even that will get more controversial and more exciting if
you will. Okay, But but in cats. There was a veterinarian in
two thousand, a veterinarian who worked in a high line spae nuterer clinic in
UH Atlanta that in the year two thousand and you know, high volume space
nuder clinics hadn't been around, there were a whole lot of them prior to
two thousand. But she interviewed veterinarians that were working in high volume space neuter
clinics about the whole issue of pediatric spain neuter UH. And I shouldn't have
brought this up because I'd have to go back and read it because I'm foggy
on some of the numbers. But the bottom line was the veterinarians that were
out there doing performing UH spain nooter on puppies and kittens less than five months
of age were unanimous, unanimous. The surgeries were faster the surgeries were easier,
to recovery from antisy was faster, and the level of complications was lower.
Unanimous, and and it's still true, right, And that's what we
need to remind people of over and over and over and over. Feline fixed
by five month, Doctor Phil Bushby. I appreciate all your knowledge, all
your time. I want to definitely talk to you again on the UC Davis
and dogs. I definitely want to talk to you about that. But I
thank you for all your time and all that you do and keep doing what
you're doing and fighting the good fight, because thank you so much. I
do. I appreciate it. And you know, knowledge is power. And
for the listeners who I know are listening and their animal lovers, this is
very important information that will help save their cats and you know dogs too,
So thank you. You convinced one person at a time. Eventually you've convinced
enough that's right. So thank you. Thank you for all of your knowledge
and information. You have a good day. You've never been a rader operator
in the spot. See a later monicator