Neutering And Behavioral Changes

I wish I had posted this before the spay-neuter clinic yesterday, but here goes:

I had scheduled six of my cats for a free spay-neuter clinic yesterday: Muscat, Marble, Daniel, Carla, Adventure and Johnny. Of these, Muscat was the most difficult for me to allow to go through the procedure. Muscat is a perfect cat. For the seven months I have had him (out of nine), he has been pleasant to all other cats (read: to 25 other cats), never sprayed, never fought, never roamed, never ate too little or too much, let the other cats get to their food, perfectly beautiful, followed me on walks, never left the farm other than on walks with me, etc.

Prior to the clinic, I read all about neutering. Testosterone is necessary not only for sexual reproduction, but also for building and maintaining bone density and muscle mass, among other things.

In a paper by Brennan McKenzie from 2010 "Evaluating the Benefits and Risks of Neutering Dogs and Cats," the table describes most of them:

http://skeptvet.com/Blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/PAV045web.pdf

I did not really have any reason to have Muscat castrated: Would he really roam if there were so many (spayed) females on my property? Would he eventually begin to fight? To spray? Would the smell even bother me (I live on a farm)? Or: would the higher risk for diabetes (see above) come into expression, leading him to a slow, drug-laden life? To what degree will muscle waste and fat increase? Would risks not mentioned here (pituitary hyperplasia), or risks studied only in dogs (raised risk for osteosarcoma) affect my perfect kitty?

I have read some of the threads on this site, most notably this one

Do boy cat's personalities change after being neutered ?

There seem to be mixed reviews with regard to changed behavior. My only comparison to him would be Mismo, neutered at 13 months after becoming a father. Mismo is distant. I see him once or twice per day. He gets into hissing matches and small scuffles with five or six of my other cats. He is afraid to eat when other cats are around. He is awfully loving as before, but he is "the problem cat," even if only slightly so.

(Of course I have other comparisons: Peter, neutered at 5.5 months and always a gentle cat, has missing wads of fur from recent fights, probably with my Kiddy Kitty (she started); Calvin, Peter's brother, neutered at 6.25 months, has daily hissing matches with Linda or Mismo. So: even though these two were neutered younger than Mismo was, they have some amount of aggression, whereas Muskitty never displayed any.) (I do not have long-term health statistics from these cats, because Mismo is only two years old now, and Peter/Calvin 8.5 months)

I wonder: Does anybody have an intact (or vasectomied) male as perfect as my Muskitty was? Was there an age at which his male finally did begin to display problem behaviors? (Was the male then neutered, and problem behaviors subside?);

Or: Does somebody have a neutered male that reached at least 12 years without developing diabetes or skeletal problems?

The decision to intervene in nature is a torturous one for me. Not knowing the future with vs. without castration, I will never know whether I did the right thing by finally letting him go in for surgery.

I've only had three male cats over the years and they were all neutered at a young age. Wesley and Milo lived into their senior years and neither one developed skeletal problems or diabetes. Paul is only five so I've yet to see how things will go with him. Milo passed on from squamous cell carcinoma and Wesley from a stroke at age 19, although he did have mild kidney disease.

In terms of their personalities, Wesley never expressed any negative behavior, which stuns me thinking back on it, but he just was always well behaved and gentle with everyone. He also was the alpha cat in the house and one of the smartest cats I've ever known. I wouldn't have changed a single thing about him. Milo did have some problems with redirected aggression but he exhibited some of that before he was neutered. Paul is another cat like Wesley. He's just perfect.

Because I've never had an intact male cat, or one with a vasectomy, I can't give you the first hand experience you are looking for about toms. And I've not read enough of the different articles and papers on castrating vs vasectomies to have a firm opinion one way or another. What I've learned about vasectomies does sound promising and I would probably consider it if I ever have an intact cat again but I don't feel any regrets at all that my boys were altered as they were.

I know you wish you had done more research before having your dear Muscat altered but he's altered now and you'll have the information available for the future. It sounds like you may feel that you let him down in some way, but you really didn't. You made a decision based on the knowledge you had at the time, a decision made with his best interest at heart. That's what really counts.

Based on my own experience, I'd say there is a very decent chance that Muscat will continue to be the cat you adore and love so much. I've always though of Wesley as my soul cat, an absolutely perfect cat in every way. There are also many male cats here at TCS that were altered and remained perfect in their human's eyes.

Hopefully, someone who has the experience you're looking for with intact cats, or those who have had vasectomies will chime in. I wish I could be more help!

I doubt you'll see much if any change in his personality. There are some hormone-driven behaviors that change but his basic personality won't.

We had a male who was unneutered for the longest time (he lived with friends before us, we took him when they moved) because he wasn't obnoxious and everybody assumed he was already neutered (he wandered in as an adult). He was long-haired and not very large in that department so it was hard to tell by looking. It wasn't until he was taken to the vet for his shots that it was discovered. And he, thankfully, didn't change a bit after neutering. He was probably 2 or 3 years old at the time. We had him for 10 years, they had him for a few years, and he was an adult when he showed up, so nobody knows exactly how old he was when he died, but at least 14-15. He was a wanderer so he never got fat, I'm sure that helped.

I had another male live to be 15, neutered at 7 months. He had hyperthyroid at the end but I don't think that's related to neutering.

There aren't a lot of studies on the effect of neutering on cats. Most show no ill effects, although they do admit that it's very difficult to find enough older intact toms as a control group. Large dogs are another matter; evidence is strong that they shouldn't be neutered too young.

I think that having a vasectomied tom may be good on a farm. That way, if an intact female wanders by, he might mate with her and bring her out of heat without getting her pregnant. Although there is a risk that he'll wander and fight, so it might not be best for long-term harmony. But it's not really an option for housecats. Most people do not want to live indoors with a full tom, whether he's fertile or not. In the US it's hard to find vets who do vasectomies though.

margd said:

I know you wish you had done more research before having your dear Muscat altered [...]

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I had done research about vasectomies. My vet said that she would not put a cat through it, because it is a more delicate procedure and would not affect testosterone-mediated behaviors (spraying, roaming, fighting), so Muskitty would still be at risk for those.

I keep turning it over and over in my head: If Muskitty eventually grew distant like Mismo, or if Muskitty ever got into a fight with the wrong cat and lost an eye, or wandered in search of an intact female and ended up on the highway, then having him castrated will have been the right choice. I will never know.

Also: do I prefer Muskitty to have a short Tomcat life or a longer life under human control? I can't answer that. I want him to be healthy and happy.

Males living a tomcat life are not happy. They are driven entirely by hormones, and fighting for females and territory.

You’ve also done the right thing in terms of controlling the population of unwanted cats. You did the right thing.

You did the right thing, trust me. Male cat spray stinks so bad it makes you want to throw up. I've never had a male cat change for the worse after being neutered, it's always for the better, they seem calmer. Two of my childhood male cats lived to be at least 11 years old, no health problems at all, and they were neutered at 9 months old.

To all the lovely people, who took note of and responded to my enquiry, Muskitten is now an angel. He was in a fight Friday night, and I heard the fight and did nothing because I wanted to go to sleep. Muskitten's friend, Venom, came to me all night. He walked on me and jumped on me, and I ignored him. The last time he had done that, Copper was dead in the other room. But I wasn't expecting a death.

In the morning I heard a long, drawn out meow like they might put in a poorly made toy cat. I left through the side of the house the meow had come from, and patted Muskitty on the head and continued on my way to feed the hens and the feral cats. It was at least 45 minutes later when I came back and noticed Muskitten had not moved, and was injured. I brought him water in a container. He didn't drink. In a syringe. He smacked his lips, hopped down from the couch, and went to the litter box, where he had watery poop (with a couple of drops of blood). Then he walked out and lay on the floor. I put him in my lap and thought: "how stupid that I only pet him like this when he is injured" (otherwise he is too independent and likes to be petted, but not held."

As if on cue, Muskitty got up, walked a few steps, and lay on the floor. I called my friend, Chip, to help me. He watched Muscat while I broke down a cardboard box to make a stretcher. I carried him to the electric blanket on my bed and put a shallow dish of water next to him. He sniffed at the water but did not drink. As I went to get the syringe, Muskitty had hopped back to the floor. He took a few steps, and lay down. As I watched, he took a few more steps, and lay down again. When I offered the syringe, he let the water roll off his tongue to the floor. A friend had told me to keep him covered, and to bring him warm sugar water. I slid a green blanket underneath him, and ran to the (separate) kitchen to get sugar and salt. I also went to the toilet. I had some pretty watery poop myself, due to stress.

Muskitty remained on the blanket for only a few moments, then got up, and walked toward the door. He lay on the floor by the porch door, on the porch side. I called my "pal", Ben, to come take me to the vet. Muskitty had gotten up again and walked toward the door and lay down, and would not even take the warm sugar water.

I slid the crate pad under Muskit and put him in the crate. Ben carried him out to the truck. We drove the 25 or so minutes to the vet with Muskitty in the back seat. I kept checking up on him visually. He breathed nicely, and even changed positions. I felt hopeful.

When I put him on the exam table, he had his rear end toward the opening. The vet reached in and picked him up quite gruffly by the scruff, lay him on the table, and wanted nothing more to do with my cat. The vet's wife did a photosensitivity/reflex test by tapping his nose, and (at my suggestion) asked the doc for some fluids. The doc wouldn't do it. Vet's wife told me to take Muskitty home to a sunny spot that he likes, and just let him die. She suggested he ride in my lap and not in the crate.

In between replying to fb messages, I cradled him and sang: "You are my Muskitty Cat, and I love you, my pretty Muskitty cat, and I love you. (Forever). My Muskitty Kitten, I love you," etc. He expired on March 10th at about 9:11 am, which is very close to his 11-month birthday.

"News" of his death has not quite hit me yet. But you know you have a perfect cat when; (a) he does not die on you while you are not paying attention; (b) he gets up and uses the litter box less than two hours before dying; (c) He walks perfectly balanced so that you don't panic; (d) doesn't die until you hug him and sing to him.

I plan to by a few books about kitty death (by Niki Behrikis Shanahan) to help me through this; maybe contact an animal communicator. I feel so bad for ignoring him for eight hours while he was dying. I wasn't sleeping very well anyway, just staying warm in bed while he was dying. I also feel good for not panicking, and singing to him as he died.Forever my perfect Muskit.

Epilogue: so now the only advantage to having neutered him is that I know that testosterone did not contribute to this fight. And the disadvantage is that I don't get to enjoy him or his kittens.

That's so sad. What did he get in a fight with?

I’m sorry to hear this. It does take a month or so for testosterone to leave the system, so it very well could have played a role.

maggiedemi said:

That's so sad. What did he get in a fight with?

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I wish I knew, but I highly suspect Kiddy, a cat that has lived with me since last May and still hisses at most other cats most of the time. I am pretty certain she is the one biting holes in Peter's fur, too.

talkingpeanut said:

I’m sorry to hear this. It does take a month or so for testosterone to leave the system, so it very well could have played a role.

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Muskitty was neutered January 27th -- it had been six weeks. He had never been in a fight with anyone. He was my greeting committee for new cats, slept and cuddled with all of them, except Linda and Kiddy and Trea and Mismo.
Trea and Mismo are mostly loners (except with their daughter, Marble-Cookie). It may have been something bigger than a cat, too.

Yes, I would guess it was something big, maybe even a coyote. Cats don't fight other cats to the point of serious injury or death (except perhaps death caused by a bite getting infected, but not purely from the trauma). It sounds like his cause of death was internal injuries.

So sorry for your loss .

So, I was going to bury him today. I rounded up Hops, Venom, Sarah-Kitten, Marble-Cookie, Mismo, Peter, and Dusty. They all came with me (except Mismo exited the herd mid-way) and did cat-things as I prepared what I needed to. Then Sarah sat on me and Peter sat on Muscat and wouldn't leave. I rounded up the others and took them home, let in the hens, and went back for Peter. Dusty was still there, also. They didn't want to leave. I told them I had to cover Muskitty's body for the night or the bad animals would take him. They followed me home. I am so grateful for the special relationships amongst my kitties.

Pictured are Mama Trea, siblings Copper, Marble-Cookie and Tipps, and infiltrator Muskitten (grey)! (Photo taken in early July, 2017)