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How neutering dogs became the norm

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Re: How neutering dogs became the norm

#101

Post by runawaybottle »

realsimplesynd wrote: post #57
projektfu wrote: post #38

As a US veterinarian, I hold a nuanced view of spay/neuter. Nevertheless, I generally recommend it as default for most pet owners, as it goes along with their expectations of what their pet's life will be like. People who elected to leave their dogs intact are often shocked by something down the line. 1. Pyometra. Dogs do not have menopause, but they may stop cycling. When they do they can develop a uterine infection…

> 6. All bitches bleed during proestrus. The word “bitch” has changed so much in cultural meaning during the last 50 years or so that somehow it feels more offensive to call a female dog a “bitch” then a human. How is “bitch” used in veterinary hospitals?

I’d feel ill calling my dog a ‘bitch’. We humans ruined the word, so not sure why your post is invisible.

Re: How neutering dogs became the norm

#102

Post by TwoBit »

sn_master wrote: post #58
michaelmrose wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would get less down votes if you make substantial arguments as people will be more apt to engage in discussion instead of down voting and moving on.

I shared a YouTube link with hundreds of videos of pitbull attacks caught on camera. Watching one or two of those videos should constitute a substantial argument if someone has an open mind. From experience, I can spend a solid hour writing arguments and I'll get downvoted anyway by all the SJWs here who refuse to accept anything differing from they believe in. Even if one person decides to watch any of those videos…

While a bunch of videos don't prove that pit bull breeds are inherently more dangerous, maybe there's an argument that pit bull physiology makes them more dangerous when they are inclined to be violent. That's a more concrete assertion at least.

Re: How neutering dogs became the norm

#103

Post by ubertoop »

t-writescode wrote: post #81
realsimplesynd wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 6. All bitches bleed during proestrus. The word “bitch” has changed so much in cultural meaning during the last 50 years or so that somehow it feels more offensive to call a female dog a “bitch” then a human. How is “bitch” used in veterinary hospitals?

It hasn’t. That’s the source of the word, and you likely haven’t been in circles where the real word is used intentionally for the real word’s purpose.

That won't stop them from trying to redefine or eliminate the word entirely.

Re: How neutering dogs became the norm

#104

Post by YarickR2 »

AuthorizedCust wrote: post #85
tw25511315 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The social density aspect is an interesting one. Of course, there is still the option of not having a dog in such an environment. This leads me now to wonder whether it's not a bit selfish to decide to mess with an animal's hormones to get them to conform to an unnatural environment. Not casting aspersions; every dog I've had was spayed/neutered.

> This leads me now to wonder whether it's not a bit selfish to decide to mess with an animal's hormones to get them to conform to an unnatural environment. Do dogs even have a natural environment? Dogs are separated from any natural source by many thousands of years, and done in a way to make them easy for them to be owned by humans.

Working/hunting dogs in rural areas (huskies, laikas) are very much in a natural environment, and no hunter in Siberia is going to neuter them.

Re: How neutering dogs became the norm

#105

Post by egypturnash »

simonblack wrote: post #97
dfxm12 wrote: post #16

I'm surprised there's no mention of Bob Barker. In 1970, less than 10 percent of licensed dogs were spay or neutered. Today, about 80 percent are. From 1979, everyday, Bob would end his show with this message: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTpolOR0kQo It's where I learned about the issue...

> no mention of Bob Barker Pseudonym, or one of the famous people following their names. I used to know a Doctor Blood, for instance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Barker

His main job was "game show host". He just started using his immensely popular show "The Price Is Right" as a platform for a small "hey get your pets spayed/neutered" announcement at the end of every episode.

Re: How neutering dogs became the norm

#107

Post by wavefunction »

neolog wrote: post #15
smnrchrds wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Iran I believe. Dogs are allowed as guard dogs, shepherd dogs, hunting dogs, etc. But they are not allowed as pets.

Looks like they're common anyway though. > According to Petchi, there are around 1.2 million pet dogs across Iran and about 350,000 of them are in Tehran. https://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-iran-dog-walkers-2019013...

Semi-feral dogs perhaps. In many parts of the world one must be cautious about the street dogs, especially if they pack up as they can be unpredictable and quite dangerous to individual humans.

Re: How neutering dogs became the norm

#108

Post by rootusrootus »

Fezzik wrote: post #80
leetcrew wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

pretty much any large dog can seriously fuck you up if they have a mind to. I've seen a chesapeake bay retriever crush a deer's head with his jaws. in the vast majority of cases, a properly socialized dog will not attack a human unprovoked.

Pretty much any mammal that is around 40+ lbs could seriously fuck that unarmed human up if it wanted or needed to. You’re not winning a hand-to-hoof fight with a deer or a mountain goat. The fact is that pit bulls are responsible for the super-majority of dog-attack-caused fatalities, at least in the USA: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_dog_attacks_in... Over a 30+ year span, pit bulls were responsible…

> around 40+ lbs

Hell, I wouldn't even bet on a human against a properly motivated 15 pound house cat.

Re: How neutering dogs became the norm

#109

Post by nbadg »

Talanes wrote: post #76
sjg007 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are running off to sow their oats.

The inference is obvious, I assume the poster is looking for actual data.

I want to preface this by saying: veterinary science is just that, a science. Your vet has spent their career, hopefully anyways, learning what the best veterinary minds know about veterinary medicine. And your vet is probably a whole lot more trustworthy than random comments on the internet like this one. But with that said, I agree completely with the above: citation sorely needed. Show me the data.

One of the first conversations I had with my vet was about when I could start running with my dog. There's a lot of conversation online about how you need to wait until growth plates fuse to avoid future health issues (or similar variations on the same theme).

Her response was, to paraphrase:

> This is all just folk wisdom. There's no proper scientific evidence to support that conclusion, and it doesn't make sense to me. What distance are you running? Do you think a wolf could run that distance at your dog's age? You know your dog, just pay attention to her; play it by ear, don't take it too hard, take it easier on harder surfaces like concrete, and get her used to running before pushing hard.

When she said that, something really clicked in my head. We're finally, finally starting to talk more about evidenced-based medicine when it comes to humans, but when it comes to animals... The plain fact of the matter is that much of veterinary medicine is really just our best guess at things. All of the problems that human medical research have are magnified substantially in the veterinary world, even if just because of how much more resource-constrained it is.

I'm having a really tough time coming up with hard numbers here -- I can't find anything at all from the US -- but I found a UK report from about a decade ago [1] that, adjusting for inflation and currency conversion, suggests that $230mm USD was spent in the UK on all veterinary research, with a heavy emphasis on agriculture over pets (extremely unsurprising!). Meanwhile, about $3bb USD was spent on human medical research [2], with about $866mm USD spent for cancer research alone[3].

Think about how many conflicting studies we hear about cancer risk in humans. Now imagine how much worse it would be with less than 1/10 the budget. And again, most of veterinary research is specific to agriculture, not pets, so now imagine how much more worse it would be if most of that research money was spent on treating other species in completely different environments, with no interest in how it relates to humans.

So again: veterinary medicine is a scientific field, and part of your vet's job is to keep abreast of the literature, and they can almost certainly do a better job of it than you or I. But if you've ever been hit by the thought "man, there is just soooo much we do not understand about human biology" or caught yourself saying "anecdata isn't the same as medical research"... when it comes to veterinary medicine, the situation is much, much worse.

[1] https://www.rcvs.org.uk/news-and-views/publications/veterina...

[2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/298897/united-kingdom-uk...

[3] https://www.stroke.org.uk/sites/default/files/sa-research_sp...

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