WEBVTT

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It's Maria's MutS and Stuff. What
a great idea on iHeartRadio. Welcome to

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Maria's Mutts and Stuff. And with
me is doctor Phil Bushby is the Mississippi

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State University College, a veterinary medicine. He's a veterinary professional, and I

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believe he's a trailblazer and I need
to ask you about that. So welcome

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and I'm looking forward to chatting with
you today. All right, Well,

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I'm excited to do this. Yeah, so you have I've read that you

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are a trailblazer when it comes to
the spae and newter in of our of

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our pets, especially cats. So
tell me how did that all begin?

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How did it all begin for you? Oh? A long time ago.

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I graduated veterinary school in nineteen seventy
two. The the veterinary curriculum did not

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talk at all about head over population. In four years in the veterinary school,

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we never visited an animal shelter.
Really, wow, Okay, I

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don't recall euthanasia in animal shelters as
being ever discussed. You know, we

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might we might spend three or four
more hours of lecture on kidney failure in

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cats or congestive heart failures in dogs. But we were ignoring the fact that

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the largest killer of dogs and cats
in the United States at the time was

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euthanasian shelters because of pedover population,
right, And apparently that and stuck out

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to you. That really was like
layer. Yeah, well it was only

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blaring as I was able to look
back at it because I went through veterinary

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school completely ignorant of an issue of
peed over population or overcrowding of shelters or

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euthanasia for space. I was unaware, completely unaware. But I did an

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internship at Henryburg Memorial Hospital of the
ASPCA in New York City when and at

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that time, this is early nineteen
seventies, the ASPCA in New York City

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was also animal control for all all
five boroughs, right, which today city

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Right today it's really separate, correct, right, But at the time it

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wasn't. Yeah. And so the
wake up call was that in the year

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of my internship, the animal shelter
at henry Berg euthanized over one hundred and

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thirty thousand dogs and cats in one
year. Wow. I do not recall

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if they euthanized on weekends, wow, right, Yeah, but if they

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didn't that was over five hundred animals
a day. Yeah, that's five days

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a week. Yeah, five days
a week, fifty two weeks of the

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year. Wake up call. The
most light threatening condition that a dog or

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cat could have in the United States
was being in an unplanned litter of puppies

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with no home right or litter of
kittens with no home right. And so

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I progressed through my career and I
became Boardsird five in surgery, but that

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number of euthanasias never left me.
And so having done all the having done

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Mefer level surgeries and this type of
thing, there was this constant pull back

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to the largest killer of dogs and
cats in the country, and that being

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euthanasia because of head over population right
in the in the in the early nineties.

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You know, now we're I'm twenty
years out from veterinary school, when

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I'm I'm still haunted by this number. And in the early so in the

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early nineties, I actually had an
administrative position at the College of Vedinary Medicine

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and was not really doing referral levels
much at all during that administrative position,

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but I had an opportunity to begin
taking veterinary students to an animal shelter in

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the next town over the animal The
Animal Shelter in Columbus, Mississippi, had

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a small surgical suite in it,
and so I could take students over there.

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I was. They were third year
students, third year veterinary students.

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I would take them into the shelter. They would see how overcrowded a small

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shelter in southeastern United States was,
and we would do space and neuters.

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I would scrub in with them.
The students would do the surgeries and it

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was a positive experience for everyone.
The students loved having the surgical experience.

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They saw the conditions in the shelters. We were able to do it without

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any charge to the shelter, and
so it was you know, it was

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there was win for the students,
it was win for the animals, and

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it was win for the shelter.
Yeah, win went all around, sure,

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and and slowly over over the years
that program has grown and grown and

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grown. We now have a our
shelter program at the Mississippi State University College

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of Vene. Medicine has three different
courses in the veterinary curriculum right, two

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of which are elective, one of
which is a required course. But in

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the in the elective. The first
elective is for junior students. Our our

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our first and second year students are
in the classroom and laboratories. Our third

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and fourth year students are in clinical
rotations. Our basic surgery labs are in

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the second year of the curriculum,
which is in most schools it's the third

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right, and they're all modeled after
Spain Looter. The students, the sophomore

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students in their basic surgery labs are
doing space and castrations on shelter animals,

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with those animals going back to the
shelters for adoption. And then in the

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third year of our curriculum, we
have a it's a short one week elective

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that students can rotate through the local
animal shelter. They're involved in routine intake

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exams, routine medical care of patients
in the shelter, involved in health certificates,

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health evaluation and health certificates for animals
being prepared for transport, and they're

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involved in Spain neuter not only of
shelter animals, but of pets of low

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income families. All right, that's
that's a one week elective. Just the

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statistics for the last six months of
last year. The junior students in that

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elective average doing sixteen surgeries during each
student doing on average sixteen surgeries doing that

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one week rotation. When when a
third year student is doing surgeries, a

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faculty member is scrubbed in with them. The student does the surgery with the

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faculty member guiding, assisting, stopping
them from doing something crazy or helping them

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out when they do do something crazy. Right, in the senior year of

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the curriculum, there is a required
two week shelters, a newter rotation.

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Every student in the curriculum goes through
that. They spend two weeks. The

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senior students when they're doing surgeries,
they're supervised, but they are but no

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one is scrubbed in with them.
They are doing the surgeries on their own.

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The senior the senior students average uh
fifty five surgeries during that two week

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rotation unassisted them doing you know,
doing it on their own. And then

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and also in the senior year,
there is a third a third course.

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Uh. It's a it's an elective
course. It's an advanced clinical rotation in

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the shelter. It's it's a two
week long rotation that in some respects is

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a repeat of the junior rotation,
but at a much higher level. And

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what I mean by that, when
there's an animal in the shelter that has

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a broken leg that needs to be
fixed, that senior student is going to

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be involved. In fact, most
likely would be the primary surgeon repairing that

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broken leg, an animal that needs
a new creation or a femo headosteectomy.

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Not only are these senior students doing
routine health maintenance and medical care of patients

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in the shelter and health certificates and
stay newter, but they're getting involved in

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the more advanced surgical procedures that shelters
frequently need as well. Sure, I

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guess, I guess the trail break
blazing component of all this I would I

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would argue that there's two components.
One is, our students are getting more

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hands on surgical experience than probably any
other veterinary school and any other veterinary students

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in the world. They graduate not
only competent, but confident their surgical skills.

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Yeah, that's very important actually.
And then the second trail blazing thing

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of this is we've been able to
do it all with grants and donations.

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Our college pays the salaries. Most
of the salaries of the faculty and staff

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that work in this program, but
all of the procedures are funded either by

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grants or so there is no charge
to the shelters we work with. And

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currently we're working with twenty six different
shelters and rest your groups in the in

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the state. And there is no
charge to those rescue groups. Well,

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that's wonderful. So so let me
just yeah, let me ask I mean,

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that's that's that's incredible. And because
spaying and neutering is just such a

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big and like probably the most important
thing to do with your pet. Do

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other universities have the same type of
program or not as what can I say,

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expansive as yours is? Because I
feel like if every university, veterinary

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university had the same type of program, I think our Spain neuter problem in

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this country would be pretty insignificant instead
of at the number that it's at.

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Well, I think I think no
one is, no, none of the

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other veterani schools address it quite the
same the same way. Right, We

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do have the advantage in the way
our curriculum is constructed. The basic surgery

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labs are in the second year of
the curriculum and not the third and the

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third and fourth years of our curriculum
are all clinical rotations, and so we

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get our students into the clinics a
year earlier than many of the other veterinary

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schools, and certainly earlier than all
of them, but a full year earlier

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than many. So our students are
getting hands on experience, more hands on

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experience with you than with other adams. Yes, obviously a significant part of

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that, in the part that I'm
involved in is the hands on surgical experience

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with space and newters. I suspect
that every veterinary school has. You know,

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the days of never mentioning animal shelters
and never talking about ped over population

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are probably over in the veterinary schools. I don't think. I don't think

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any any of the veterinary schools do
it to the level we do right right

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now now, there are there are
veterinary schools that do a better job than

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we do from the standpoint of working
with shelters on the medical care. You

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know, I'm I'm fans of UH. I'm a fan of the shelter program

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at Florida UH, and that UC
Davis a veterinary school, MH. But

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there their emphasis is much more preventive
care and medical care, where our emphasis

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is much more preventing unwanted litters,
getting animals, you know, intact animals

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and shelters, getting them spade and
newted, which is for many of those

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animals, is the ticket to getting
them into a home. Sure, sure,

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I mean, I just feel like
it's such a simple solution, and

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I'm kind of surprised that other VET
schools aren't doing the same type of program,

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Like it's almost like a no brainer
to me being on the outside looking

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in. Well, it is,
but I think you have to you have

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to recognize that I started doing this
in early nineties, So we're thirty years

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in and it wasn't like one day
we turned to switch and we had this

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program right. This program, this
program has evolved from an infancy in the

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early nineties to a more a maturity
directed towards spain neuter thirty years later.

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Sure, but there are a lot
of along that pathway to get us to

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where we are now. Right,
So, I think I think it'd be

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safe to say most of the other
veterinary schools are on the same pathway.

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I think we just started started right, right. No, that makes sense,

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and that's I mean, and to
me that that's key because that,

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to me is just such a such
a big problem with people not spaying or

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neutering their pets. And many times, and I get it, they don't

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have access to affordable spaying or neutering, so you know, yeah, yeah,

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So let me put something to perspective
because I know that one of the

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focuses of this discussion, and we're
having this discussion because this is feline fixed

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by five months. Yes, I
was going to ask you about the first

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shelter that I started working with in
the early nineties. When we first started

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going, they would not allow us
to and neuter animals under six months of

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age. This is thirty years ago, but this was the chair of the

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board of the shelter and there was
a veterinarian on the board of the shelter,

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both of which were absolutely opposed to
stay neuter younger than six months of

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age. And so the first few
years we were doing all the adults and

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none of the puppies and none of
the kittens were being spayed and neutered.

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And then a shift in the manager, the day to day manager of the

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shelter, and I met with that
person and said, you know this is

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crazy. If we really want to
have an impact, we need to be

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spaying the puppies and kittens. We
can do this as young as six to

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eight weeks of age, and we
should be doing it on all animals prior

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to adoption. That manager bought that
argument totally, and so we sometimes it's

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easier to get forgiveness and permission,
and so we we simply started doing it

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right. And then some time later, I mean just a matter of weeks,

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Uh, there was a board meeting
for the shelter, and so we

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went to that board meeting and reported
what we were doing. And the veterinarian

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on the board quit being on the
board, and the chair of the board

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resigned from the board because we were
spaying in animals, spaying and neutering animals

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so young. The thing the thing
to realize. And this is where this

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is where the debate comes in about
is it appropriate to spay and newt prior

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to six months of age? I'd
say from the eighties to two thoy ten,

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that's a guess. Virtually every virtually
every veterinary school was teaching wait until

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six months, even at Mississippi State
University faculty. And I'm on the faculty

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obviously, but faculty, we're teaching
wait until six months, and yet I'm

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taking students out and we're doing it
in six weeks, okay. And so

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the profession had standardized six months or
older as the appropriate age to spay or

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new either dogs or cats. They're
been having graduated in nineteen seventy two,

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I'd watched the veterinary profession go from
recommending that, you know, there's a

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reason the estimates for the number of
animals euthanized in the early seventies was between

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fifteen and twenty two million a year. Is at that time they were recommending

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that animals have a litter first before
you spay or newt to them, right,

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I've heard that, yeah, And
then then that was modified to let

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them have one heat cycle first,
right, right, And then then then

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that was modified to six months of
age, and the profession kind of collaced

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around six months of age is the
appropriate age? Right? Right, There's

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never been any research whatsoever the sports
six months as the appropriate age for spee

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neuter you, if you want to
judge it around the reproductive cycle, is

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your is your intent? In Spain
neuter predominantly to prevent reproduction and if it

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is. If it is, we
have to address the fact that cats can

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come Female cats can come into heat
as young as four months of age.

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A female cat can have and gestation
period is essentially two months long. A

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female cat can have a litter of
kittens by the time it's six months,

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yeah, and a half months of
so picking it's almost like reach into a

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hat and pick out a number.
Oh, the number is six. Let's

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do it at six. No research
support as that's the ideal time. You

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know, small breed dogs can come
into heat before six months of age,

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or larger breed dogs come into heat
later. So six months of age is

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an arbitrary number that profession coalesced around
and is what was taught. Right,

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So virtually virtually every veterinarian graduating from
veterinary school from say nineteen seventy five the

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two thousand was taught you have to
wait until there's six months of age.

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So the majority of veterinarians out there
are simply doing what they were taught correct.

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And oh, by the way,
if you have questions about when you

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should spay or new to your pet, who do you ask? You ask

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your veterinarian question your local veterinarian was
taught six months of age, and so

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that is permea permeated. The whole
concept is permeated society as six months of

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age is the appropriate age, and
there is no research that supports back right,

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and so this radical idea of you
know, back in mid nineties of

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Spain and neutering six to eight week
old puppies uh caused a veterinarian to resign

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from the board of the shelter I
was working with, and and and the

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chair of the board to resign.
They just walked out in a huff,

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amazing because they thought it was so
wrong, right, right, and yet

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and yet, especially in cats.
You know, the dog world has gotten

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a little bit confused. And we
could do we could do a whole podcast

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on my analysis of the research that
most of which has come out of UC

220
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Davis Veterinary School and the flaws and
that research. But if we if we

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put pushed dogs to the side right
now and focus on cat, right,

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we can do the dogs on another
episode. We can do that, an

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absolutely, I would love to if
we If we focus on cats, we

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start with this premise female cats can
come into heat as young as four months

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of age all right, they are
sexually mature prior to six months of age.

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And there are no studies, zero
studies in cats that document adverse medical

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consequences or behavioral consequences from spading and
neutering as young as six to eight weeks

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none so AB American Vetteranu Medical Association, BAHA, American Animal Hospital Association,

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Association of Feline Practitioners, Association of
Shelter Veterinarians. Four major professional veterinary associations

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have all endorsed the concept put out
by in twenty sixteen by the Task Force

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on Feline Sterilization that ultimately results in
this fee line six by five campaign.

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Four major veterinary associations, fourteen state
veterinary medical associations have endorsed the whole concept

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behind stay nuter of cats prior to
five months of age. Where it gets

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a little bit confused, maybe,
where it gets a little bit confused in

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the shelter environment. We're saying they
and neuter prior to adoption. Uh,

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And if you're adopted out at eight
weeks of age, spay or neuter between

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six and eight weeks of age.
We we don't recommend that for owned puppies

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and kittens for for a very logical
reason which seems to confuse a lot of

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people. Right, do you own
a puppy or kitten, all right,

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and that puppy kitten is in your
household. That household is a pretty safe

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environment from the standpoint of the risk
of being associated with any infectious diseases.

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Right, do you take that puppy
or kitten to an environment where the risk

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is great? Right? Meaning an
animal hospital. Sure, the risk of

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the risk of an animal being to
an infectious disease is much greater in an

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animal hospital than it is at home. All right, So what we recommend

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our own animals is, yes,
take the animal to the veterinarian for the

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vaccination series, and you routine vaccination
and parasite control, but don't hospitalize that

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patient, that puppier kitten at that
age. Let the puppier kitten get all

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the way through the vaccination series,
which usually is over by sixteen weeks of

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age, and then once they're fully
vaccinated, then you set the next appointment.

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A lot of veterinarians set up their
vaccinations and parasite control appointments at two

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or three week intervals. So you've
been taking your puppier kitten to the veterinarian

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every two or three weeks, since
it was six weeks, since you got

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it at six to seven or seven
weeks of age. And so let's say

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it's let's say it's you get the
puppy, it's seven seven weeks of age,

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and your veterinarian says every three weeks, so it's seven weeks, it's

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in thet it goes to the clinic
for vaccinations. It's ten weeks. It

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goes for vaccinations and parasite control for
thirteen weeks, vaccinations and parasite control for

259
00:28:18.559 --> 00:28:23.720
sixteen weeks, vaccinations and parasite controls. It's finished its vaccination series. One

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more appointment, nineteen weeks. Now
it's safe. That animal is fully vaccinated.

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Now it's safe to hospitalize that animal
for the day for the shade neuter.

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And you've still gotten it's spader neutered
before five months of age. Right

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in the shelter environment, that's a
different world than home, and the largest,

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the greatest risk of infectious disease for
a puppy or kitten is to stay

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in that shelter environment. All right, and the shelter is vaccinating too.

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But these animals are constantly exposed to
the risk of bacterial enviral diseases. So

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what you want to do is get
them out of the shelter environment and into

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people's homes. And the ticket for
getting them out of the shelter environment and

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into people's homes is getting it spaid
or neutered. So we push the spady

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neuter in the shelter environment as young
as six eight weeks of age, and

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we push it in the for the
owned pets two between four and five months

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of age. Both of those are
logical recommendations for the health and safety of

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the pet, right, but the
PS two, all of that is for

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me. In the animal welfare animal
rescue world, we prefer that people get

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their their pets from a shelter or
rescue so right, because you know,

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adopt the shop, don't go to
pets store because that's puppy mills and everything

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else, and why even bother going
to a breeder when the shelters are filled.

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So and not to take away from
the different timetable if it's home or

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it's shelter. But you know,
most shelters won't adopt out a pet unless

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it's already spade or neutered. And
that's yeah, yeah, and that's if

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they're adopted. If they're adopting about
reproductively intact, they're simply digging their whole

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defense because three months later or six
months later, they're going to get a

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litter of kitten, correct, litter
of puppies. Right, So we adopt

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out this, we adopted out this, we're just helping kitten or this playful

285
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active puppy, and six months later
we get fixed back in return. Exactly.

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It cuts the opposite of what a
shelter, right, Yes, avit

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00:31:00.359 --> 00:31:04.839
spade or mooted before it goes out
of the door. Yeah, And over

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time we will know the current estimates, and all we have is estimates,

289
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current estimates. The current estimates are
that now in twenty twenty something, we're

290
00:31:22.640 --> 00:31:30.279
euthanizing one point five million dogs and
cats a year in shelters, and it

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was ten times that or more fifty
years ago when I graduated veterinary school.

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So we've made tremendous progress in several
fronts. One is in educating people about

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the importance of spee neoter and in
providing access to spay neoter. Well,

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that's to me is more key is
the access for people. Yeah, well,

295
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very important people. People buy the
idea. Now it's just a whole

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00:32:04.440 --> 00:32:07.240
lot of them can't afford it,
correct, Yeah, And so then you

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00:32:07.319 --> 00:32:13.720
get into the whole realm of low
cost you know, high quality, high

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00:32:13.759 --> 00:32:17.720
buying, low cost paying hooter clinics, which in the nineties were absolutely controversial.

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The profession was fighting them, and
now they've pretty much realized that,

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00:32:27.359 --> 00:32:30.599
you know, the practicing veterinarians out
there aren't going to lose a client they

301
00:32:30.640 --> 00:32:38.039
never had, right, And if
I can't take if I'm living on a

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00:32:38.119 --> 00:32:45.640
six to eight hundred dollars Social Security
check per year, per month, I'm

303
00:32:45.640 --> 00:32:49.200
not going to take my new puppy
to a veterinarian and spend five hundred dollars

304
00:32:49.599 --> 00:32:53.640
spade. You know that's afford it
and eighty percent of my income. Yeah,

305
00:32:54.079 --> 00:33:00.240
you're right. So I think the
profession is bought into the concept that

306
00:33:01.200 --> 00:33:10.079
these low cost space neuter clinics do
do quality work, and I have not

307
00:33:10.119 --> 00:33:15.160
putting them out of The private practitioners
out of business busier now than they ever

308
00:33:15.160 --> 00:33:19.160
made. We're sure weren't as busy
as they are right now. Sure,

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Well, let me ask you this
for those because there there's always the naysayers

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in any situation, and I've had
arguments with people over this when and I'm

311
00:33:30.279 --> 00:33:36.480
sure you have heard about people who
refuse to spay or neuter their cat or

312
00:33:36.559 --> 00:33:43.960
dog and their reasoning is it causes
more health problems in the animal, which

313
00:33:44.000 --> 00:33:45.799
I don't believe. But I'm not
you know, I'm a civilian. I

314
00:33:46.039 --> 00:33:52.440
don't have a vet background. What
do you say when you hear people say

315
00:33:52.440 --> 00:33:57.680
that, Well, other than put
my hair out, I don't have much

316
00:33:57.720 --> 00:34:01.039
of that, yes, but you
know you know what I mean, right,

317
00:34:01.079 --> 00:34:08.719
You've heard that from people. Absolutely. Yeah. The the literature and

318
00:34:08.760 --> 00:34:13.840
again more in dogs. The literature
has gotten confused over the last ten years

319
00:34:15.119 --> 00:34:17.760
because of some of the articles that
have been published on what I believe is

320
00:34:19.199 --> 00:34:30.559
pretty weak research. But you know, the sad reality is things are published

321
00:34:30.599 --> 00:34:35.639
online now and you know they're not
true. If it's on the internet,

322
00:34:35.679 --> 00:34:42.599
it must be true, you know. And so everybody everybody before they talked

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00:34:42.639 --> 00:34:49.679
to the veterinarian, they talked at
doctor Google and leave was some misinformation.

324
00:34:50.679 --> 00:35:08.280
But there there are several studies that
have looked at the impact of early Spade

325
00:35:08.360 --> 00:35:13.239
Newter. By early, I mean
as young as six to eight weeks of

326
00:35:13.280 --> 00:35:22.320
age in cats, and none of
them, none of the studies have come

327
00:35:22.400 --> 00:35:37.639
up with conditions that are more prevalent
because an animal with spade under five months

328
00:35:37.639 --> 00:35:49.719
of age. None of them all
right, And what's so often missing in

329
00:35:49.760 --> 00:35:58.400
this dialogue, it's the fact that
the larger the animal is and the older

330
00:35:58.440 --> 00:36:06.960
the animal is, the longer the
surgery takes, the more difficult the surgery

331
00:36:07.000 --> 00:36:22.800
takes. A a spay in a
two pounds or three pound can we gold

332
00:36:22.000 --> 00:36:32.960
kitten is so much easier and so
much faster than in a six to eight

333
00:36:34.079 --> 00:36:45.320
pound six month kitten. Hat the
surgery, the anesthetic times or less,

334
00:36:45.360 --> 00:36:52.599
the surgical times are less, the
incidence of hemorrhage is less, recovery times

335
00:36:52.719 --> 00:37:05.639
are faster, and so there's no
zero in my professional opinion, there is

336
00:37:05.960 --> 00:37:14.440
zero reason I won't even talk about
h doing a spee or neuter at six

337
00:37:14.480 --> 00:37:19.039
to eight weeks as early age.
I talk about doing a spay or neuter

338
00:37:19.199 --> 00:37:23.159
at six months of age being delayed. There is no reason to delay the

339
00:37:23.239 --> 00:37:30.440
surgery until the animal is older and
larger and the surgery is more difficult and

340
00:37:30.760 --> 00:37:37.559
takes longer. There's no reason,
especially in cats, and in dogs there

341
00:37:37.639 --> 00:37:45.639
may be a few slightly valid arguments
occasionally, but not many cats. In

342
00:37:45.800 --> 00:37:54.199
cats, there are no reasons to
delay spae neuter past five months of age.

343
00:37:53.880 --> 00:38:00.760
Right, No, so here here, here, here are specific arguments

344
00:38:00.760 --> 00:38:05.280
people have made. Well, in
male cats, it predisposes to urinary obstruction.

345
00:38:05.840 --> 00:38:12.079
Well, that was disproven in the
nineties. Their their, their theory.

346
00:38:12.840 --> 00:38:15.119
We shouldn't say this because now someone's
going to listen to only this sentence

347
00:38:15.119 --> 00:38:22.039
in the podcast and use it.
But their theory is you castrate a castrate

348
00:38:22.079 --> 00:38:27.880
a cat before it's sexually mature,
the penis is smaller, the urethra is

349
00:38:27.920 --> 00:38:32.039
smaller, predisposed us to urinary obstruction. Well, there was a research study

350
00:38:32.079 --> 00:38:39.400
in the nineties that looked at urethral
diameters and urethel pressures in intact male cats,

351
00:38:40.039 --> 00:38:45.960
male cats, male cats castrated at
seven months of age and male cats

352
00:38:45.039 --> 00:38:52.800
castrated at seven weeks of age and
found zero difference. All right, So

353
00:38:52.800 --> 00:38:59.039
so their basic premise, which makes
them think that urethral obstruction might be more

354
00:38:59.079 --> 00:39:07.599
common, is false. Right,
then there's been a lot of research looking

355
00:39:07.760 --> 00:39:16.719
at predisposing factors that contribute to your
retel obstruction in male cats. Several research

356
00:39:16.760 --> 00:39:23.599
papers out there, not a single
one of them comes to the conclusion that

357
00:39:25.960 --> 00:39:34.559
early, earlier castration predisposed us to
reteal obstruction. I mean, I could

358
00:39:34.599 --> 00:39:40.440
pull out a reference list and read
read your six or eight research articles that

359
00:39:40.559 --> 00:39:45.840
have all looked at what are the
things that predisposed cats to mail cats to

360
00:39:45.960 --> 00:39:54.079
retel obstruction, and none of those
articles mentioned early castration. None of them

361
00:39:54.360 --> 00:40:00.599
there. Another argument is and here
the basic premise is correct, right,

362
00:40:02.519 --> 00:40:16.360
Removing sex hormones estrogens from females and
testosterone from males causes a slight delay in

363
00:40:16.400 --> 00:40:23.559
the closure of growth plates. Right. The reason we get taller as we

364
00:40:23.679 --> 00:40:31.280
grow up is there are growth plates
in all of our long bones that continue

365
00:40:31.320 --> 00:40:36.960
to grow until a certain age.
For people, that age is usually around

366
00:40:37.320 --> 00:40:46.239
seventeen eighteen years of age before those
growth plates close, and in tats it's

367
00:40:46.360 --> 00:40:54.679
usually closer to nine to twelve months
of age. And removing the sex hormones,

368
00:40:54.719 --> 00:41:02.559
if you will, causes a slight
delay. Right. So if you

369
00:41:02.760 --> 00:41:10.159
are if you are really really concerned
that your cat might be a half a

370
00:41:10.280 --> 00:41:19.639
centimeter taller, my god, don't
have them castrated, worse trade until after

371
00:41:19.800 --> 00:41:24.760
they were a year of age,
but there's been no clinical significance in the

372
00:41:24.840 --> 00:41:32.679
cat. Zero documented clinical significance of
that delay. One of the things in

373
00:41:32.760 --> 00:41:39.639
dogs is there may be some clinical
significance in some cases, but in cats

374
00:41:39.679 --> 00:41:49.480
there's none. And virtually every argument
that people come up with as to some

375
00:41:49.679 --> 00:41:57.519
condition that might be more common if
the animal is castrated, it's false in

376
00:41:57.559 --> 00:42:01.159
the cat, you know, but
then then then okay, what about what

377
00:42:01.280 --> 00:42:10.280
about if you delay? Well,
the third most common tumor in cats is

378
00:42:10.360 --> 00:42:22.400
memory neoplasia. Ninety six of memory
neoplasias are malignant. The life expectancy of

379
00:42:22.440 --> 00:42:28.639
a cat once it's been diagnosed with
memory neoplasia, whether the cat is treated

380
00:42:28.760 --> 00:42:35.559
or not, on averages less than
a year, and the incidence of memory

381
00:42:35.599 --> 00:42:45.800
neoplasia jumps rises as soon as that
cat has had one heat cycle. So

382
00:42:47.800 --> 00:42:53.079
yes, say it before it ever
has that heat cycle. You significantly reduced

383
00:42:53.159 --> 00:43:01.360
the chances of memory neoplasia. So
people like to stop going to doctor Google

384
00:43:01.599 --> 00:43:07.039
on the Internet to get their information, or or at least if they go

385
00:43:07.159 --> 00:43:13.559
to doctor Google. I would I
would really support don't go to doctor Google,

386
00:43:13.719 --> 00:43:16.559
right, But but if you do
go to doctor Google, Google,

387
00:43:17.119 --> 00:43:24.239
recognize that d O G. Does
not not spell cat. And and most

388
00:43:24.280 --> 00:43:30.840
of the negative literature out there on
doctor Google is about d o DS correct.

389
00:43:30.880 --> 00:43:36.760
Well, yeah, and and and
so again we could we could have

390
00:43:36.800 --> 00:43:40.559
a podcast later on the whole issue. We will. Yeah, that and

391
00:43:40.599 --> 00:43:46.079
that and that will get even that
will get more controversial and more exciting if

392
00:43:46.119 --> 00:43:52.880
you will. Okay, But but
in cats. There was a veterinarian in

393
00:43:52.920 --> 00:43:55.840
two thousand, a veterinarian who worked
in a high line spae nuterer clinic in

394
00:43:57.480 --> 00:44:01.599
UH Atlanta that in the year two
thousand and you know, high volume space

395
00:44:01.679 --> 00:44:07.719
nuder clinics hadn't been around, there
were a whole lot of them prior to

396
00:44:07.760 --> 00:44:15.039
two thousand. But she interviewed veterinarians
that were working in high volume space neuter

397
00:44:15.079 --> 00:44:23.159
clinics about the whole issue of pediatric
spain neuter UH. And I shouldn't have

398
00:44:23.199 --> 00:44:28.760
brought this up because I'd have to
go back and read it because I'm foggy

399
00:44:28.800 --> 00:44:34.079
on some of the numbers. But
the bottom line was the veterinarians that were

400
00:44:34.119 --> 00:44:42.119
out there doing performing UH spain nooter
on puppies and kittens less than five months

401
00:44:42.119 --> 00:44:50.920
of age were unanimous, unanimous.
The surgeries were faster the surgeries were easier,

402
00:44:51.920 --> 00:44:57.679
to recovery from antisy was faster,
and the level of complications was lower.

403
00:44:58.199 --> 00:45:05.280
Unanimous, and and it's still true, right, And that's what we

404
00:45:05.480 --> 00:45:09.760
need to remind people of over and
over and over and over. Feline fixed

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00:45:09.760 --> 00:45:15.039
by five month, Doctor Phil Bushby. I appreciate all your knowledge, all

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your time. I want to definitely
talk to you again on the UC Davis

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and dogs. I definitely want to
talk to you about that. But I

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00:45:24.920 --> 00:45:28.840
thank you for all your time and
all that you do and keep doing what

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you're doing and fighting the good fight, because thank you so much. I

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do. I appreciate it. And
you know, knowledge is power. And

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for the listeners who I know are
listening and their animal lovers, this is

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00:45:40.280 --> 00:45:45.599
very important information that will help save
their cats and you know dogs too,

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00:45:45.639 --> 00:45:50.000
So thank you. You convinced one
person at a time. Eventually you've convinced

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enough that's right. So thank you. Thank you for all of your knowledge

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00:45:52.880 --> 00:46:01.239
and information. You have a good
day. You've never been a rader operator

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00:46:01.320 --> 00:46:04.679
in the spot. See a later
monicator