A Decision

It wasn't so much a matter of if but when to do it. I knew that before he got too much older, Quint would have to be neutered. Ouch! The very thought of it made me shiver. Sure, it's the right thing to do, and, yes, it will most likely prevent some sort of future behavior problems if it's done while he's young. The question is: Will he ever forgive me? Quint and I feel pretty much the same way about visits to the doctor. We both recognize the necessity in some extreme circumstances, but for the most part, we both believe that the fewer visits we make the better off we'll be, and that none at all would be the very best. I mean, what do we go to the doctor for, really? Well, we go to the doctor to find out why we don't feel well and to get some sort of remedy so that we do feel well. That seems simple enough, but we both believe that it's just better to feel well all the time and not see the doctor at all if possible. In Quint's case there wasn't anything wrong with him. He was feeling just fine. He was a normal male kitten, who, very soon, would grow up to be a normal male cat.

The problem is that normal male cats perform normal male cat activities, like finding normal female cats to help them make more cats, and marking their territory as they roam around looking for those female cats. Quint was destined to live the life of a pampered, happy, healthy, indoor cat, the keyword being "indoor." There are great many very good reasons to want your cat to be an indoor cat, rather than an outdoor, or indoor/outdoor cat. These reasons include: no fleas, no ticks, no cat fights, no being run over by a car, no gifts of recently dead small animals or birds, no expensive vet bills caused by any of the aforementioned hazards and especially no being run over by a car!! Indoor cats live much longer than outdoor cats, and can be perfectly happy doing so, given loving, attentive human companions. A neutered, indoor cat often never develops the undesireable marking behavior that would be normal for a non-neutered outdoor cat. All the logical reasons say that a neutered cat would make a happier indoor cat. Still, I wondered if he would ever forgive me when he came back from the veterinary hospital missing two of his favorite parts. We'd just have to wait and see and hope that he'd blame the vet and not me.