PetLvr.com - [The Blog]

As worldwide financial panic continues, so does our series on pet ownership in a down economy. Last time, we talked about making pet toys at home. That’s a great way to save some money, but you can’t make everything your pets need. For example, vet care is an absolute necessity. This time, we’ll look at ways to save on the necessities that you can’t make at home.

Vet Care Deals

In an emergency, there’s no time to worry about price. But when your pet is due for a routine procedure like a spay/neuter or vaccinations, you have many options. Start by throwing the idea that your pet needs to get all his or her yearly vaccinations at once out the window. It’s easier on the immune system to give vaccines one at a time, with about three weeks between jabs to recover. Unless doing vaccinations separately would result in a larger total number of injections, it’s okay to do one at a time for adult pets. This gives you the leeway to budget monthly for shots, and to go to monthly low-cost clinics for those immunizations. For example, Petco stores host vaccination clinics monthly in most areas.

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As a pet owner, you have to take responsibility for your pet just like you would for your own child. If you are not prepared to breed animals, you should take immediate action to spay or neuter your pet. When this part of pet ownership is neglected, it only makes pets suffer. During October, the point to spay and neuter pets will be a main focus for many animal organizations.

Spaying and neutering is important to reduce the amount of homeless and neglected animals around the world. The population of dogs and cats only increases when action isn’t taken, which means that more animals will end up in shelters or not have a home at all. The simple procedure to spay or neuter has the potential to alleviate behavioral problems too. Animals have instincts, which can be strong enough to make them run away from home or impregnate another pet during your walk in the park.

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Dear Petlvr Mailbag …

Well, the inevitable happened. I had my 10 month old cat scheduled to get spayed, and she escaped and got pregnant 2 weeks prior to the spay-date.

Ugh.

Anyway - I now have 4 beautiful kittens that need homes. I am going to keep one, so I need homes for 3. Do you have any suggestions as to go about finding them suitable and happy homes?

Side note: When they were 2 weeks old, mama cat became ill and after taking her to the vet, I had to hand-feed the kittens myself, so I’m very attached. It’s going to be sad to let them go, but I have to.

- Kitten Chaos

Dear Chaos,
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Rabbits reach sexual maturity at about age six months. It varies somewhat by breed. Spaying is the surgical procedure carried out on females in which their mature organs are removed, neutering involves removing the testes of the male but not the penis - neutering is not the same as full castration.

There are pros and cons to the procedure for either sex.

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