How much does spay & neuter cost pet owners?

When you get a new pet in your life, the issue of whether to spay or neuter your new addition is going to come up. Spaying services are for female animals, and often this procedure costs more than a neuter procedure, which is performed on male animals. This is because spaying an animal is more invasive than neutering. It’s the spay and neuter cost that keeps many pet owners from having this service performed on their animals. But there is a cost to not having these procedures done as well.

The Real Spay and Neuter Cost

Right now, there are more than 75 million pet dogs in the U.S. alone. That’s more than any other country, and that’s a huge number of canines running around in the world. Unlike humans, dogs and cats do not give birth to just one offspring at a time. Unless there is something wrong with the health of the parent animal, new puppies and kittens are born in litters. Typically, four to six new animals will be born every time a dog or cat gets pregnant. Also unlike humans, dogs and cats get pregnant and give birth in a matter of weeks. This means that a healthy female cat or dog can give birth multiple times in a single year, while most humans will give birth just once to a single offspring during this same amount of time.

Dogs and cats do have something in common with people when it comes to producing new life — they only need to mate once to get pregnant. While no dog or cat will get pregnant every single time they mate, the chances that they will get pregnant in a single mating session are higher than in humans. Now, you may begin to see why spay and neuter cost is about more than the money homeowners have to spend. Without having spaying and neutering services performed, you could end up with multiple litters of new pets in just one calendar year. Think about the cost of having a bunch of new puppies and kittens for a while, and suddenly spay and neuter cost doesn’t seem like such a big expense.

Ways to Save on Spay and Neuter Cost

Your local veterinarian and any nearby animal hospital will provide spaying and neutering services. However, their prices may be higher than the spay and neuter cost at a veterinary clinic or an SPCA vet. Take the time to look around in your local area for veterinary services provided by the humane society and SPCA vet clinic options, which will often provide these services at a cheaper rate than a local veterinarian’s office. There may even be a vet clinic that offers spaying and neutering at drastically reduced prices when compared to a typical local veterinarian because animal population control is now considered to be an important issue. You can even look online for coupons and special offers that will save you on spay and neuter cost for all of your pets.

The spay and neuter cost that you will initially pay will ultimately pay off in the long run when your pets live long and healthy lives without getting pregnant — or getting another animal pregnant. You will help provide population control for pets, something that has become a national concern. You will also help your animals. Pets that have received spay and neuter services typically no longer spend time prowling for a sexual mate, something that nature demands they do on a regular basis. Pets are driven by urges and instincts that drive them to mate. This can cause them to run away from home in search of a partner. Cats sometimes yowl at night because they’re in heat, and their instincts are driving them to mate. Having them spayed and neutered helps to dull these instincts, so they can focus on living a much happier, simpler life. As any human knows, looking for a mate can be pretty darn stressful. You can save your pets from this search by paying for the spay and neuter cost when they’re young, and solving many problems before they ever become problems in the first place.