Feline Fix By Five Month!

Maria chats with Dr. Phil Bushby, a veterinary professional at Mississippi State University College of Veterinary Medicine. Dr. Bushby iis a trailblazer in his fight against animal overpopulation. He shares his vast knowledge about spaying and neutering, especially feline fix by five which means not the standard spaying/neutering after six months.
Listen and Learn!

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
It's Maria's MutS and Stuff. Whata great idea on iHeartRadio. Welcome to
Maria's Mutts and Stuff. And withme is doctor Phil Bushby is the Mississippi
State University College, a veterinary medicine. He's a veterinary professional, and I

(00:24):
believe he's a trailblazer and I needto ask you about that. So welcome
and I'm looking forward to chatting withyou today. All right, Well,
I'm excited to do this. Yeah, so you have I've read that you
are a trailblazer when it comes tothe spae and newter in of our of
our pets, especially cats. Sotell me how did that all begin?

(00:48):
How did it all begin for you? Oh? A long time ago.
I graduated veterinary school in nineteen seventytwo. The the veterinary curriculum did not

(01:12):
talk at all about head over population. In four years in the veterinary school,
we never visited an animal shelter.Really, wow, Okay, I
don't recall euthanasia in animal shelters asbeing ever discussed. You know, we

(01:42):
might we might spend three or fourmore hours of lecture on kidney failure in
cats or congestive heart failures in dogs. But we were ignoring the fact that
the largest killer of dogs and catsin the United States at the time was

(02:07):
euthanasian shelters because of pedover population,right, And apparently that and stuck out
to you. That really was likelayer. Yeah, well it was only
blaring as I was able to lookback at it because I went through veterinary
school completely ignorant of an issue ofpeed over population or overcrowding of shelters or

(02:30):
euthanasia for space. I was unaware, completely unaware. But I did an
internship at Henryburg Memorial Hospital of theASPCA in New York City when and at
that time, this is early nineteenseventies, the ASPCA in New York City

(02:53):
was also animal control for all allfive boroughs, right, which today city
Right today it's really separate, correct, right, But at the time it
wasn't. Yeah. And so thewake up call was that in the year
of my internship, the animal shelterat henry Berg euthanized over one hundred and

(03:20):
thirty thousand dogs and cats in oneyear. Wow. I do not recall
if they euthanized on weekends, wow, right, Yeah, but if they
didn't that was over five hundred animalsa day. Yeah, that's five days
a week. Yeah, five daysa week, fifty two weeks of the

(03:44):
year. Wake up call. Themost light threatening condition that a dog or
cat could have in the United Stateswas being in an unplanned litter of puppies
with no home right or litter ofkittens with no home right. And so

(04:09):
I progressed through my career and Ibecame Boardsird five in surgery, but that
number of euthanasias never left me.And so having done all the having done
Mefer level surgeries and this type ofthing, there was this constant pull back
to the largest killer of dogs andcats in the country, and that being

(04:34):
euthanasia because of head over population rightin the in the in the early nineties.
You know, now we're I'm twentyyears out from veterinary school, when
I'm I'm still haunted by this number. And in the early so in the
early nineties, I actually had anadministrative position at the College of Vedinary Medicine

(04:57):
and was not really doing referral levelsmuch at all during that administrative position,
but I had an opportunity to begintaking veterinary students to an animal shelter in
the next town over the animal TheAnimal Shelter in Columbus, Mississippi, had

(05:20):
a small surgical suite in it,and so I could take students over there.
I was. They were third yearstudents, third year veterinary students.
I would take them into the shelter. They would see how overcrowded a small
shelter in southeastern United States was,and we would do space and neuters.

(05:46):
I would scrub in with them.The students would do the surgeries and it
was a positive experience for everyone.The students loved having the surgical experience.
They saw the conditions in the shelters. We were able to do it without
any charge to the shelter, andso it was you know, it was

(06:09):
there was win for the students,it was win for the animals, and
it was win for the shelter.Yeah, win went all around, sure,
and and slowly over over the yearsthat program has grown and grown and
grown. We now have a ourshelter program at the Mississippi State University College

(06:34):
of Vene. Medicine has three differentcourses in the veterinary curriculum right, two
of which are elective, one ofwhich is a required course. But in
the in the elective. The firstelective is for junior students. Our our
our first and second year students arein the classroom and laboratories. Our third

(06:59):
and fourth year students are in clinicalrotations. Our basic surgery labs are in
the second year of the curriculum,which is in most schools it's the third
right, and they're all modeled afterSpain Looter. The students, the sophomore
students in their basic surgery labs aredoing space and castrations on shelter animals,

(07:20):
with those animals going back to theshelters for adoption. And then in the
third year of our curriculum, wehave a it's a short one week elective
that students can rotate through the localanimal shelter. They're involved in routine intake

(07:47):
exams, routine medical care of patientsin the shelter, involved in health certificates,
health evaluation and health certificates for animalsbeing prepared for transport, and they're
involved in Spain neuter not only ofshelter animals, but of pets of low

(08:11):
income families. All right, that'sthat's a one week elective. Just the
statistics for the last six months oflast year. The junior students in that
elective average doing sixteen surgeries during eachstudent doing on average sixteen surgeries doing that

(08:35):
one week rotation. When when athird year student is doing surgeries, a
faculty member is scrubbed in with them. The student does the surgery with the
faculty member guiding, assisting, stoppingthem from doing something crazy or helping them

(08:56):
out when they do do something crazy. Right, in the senior year of
the curriculum, there is a requiredtwo week shelters, a newter rotation.
Every student in the curriculum goes throughthat. They spend two weeks. The
senior students when they're doing surgeries,they're supervised, but they are but no

(09:20):
one is scrubbed in with them.They are doing the surgeries on their own.
The senior the senior students average uhfifty five surgeries during that two week
rotation unassisted them doing you know,doing it on their own. And then

(09:41):
and also in the senior year,there is a third a third course.
Uh. It's a it's an electivecourse. It's an advanced clinical rotation in
the shelter. It's it's a twoweek long rotation that in some respects is

(10:01):
a repeat of the junior rotation,but at a much higher level. And
what I mean by that, whenthere's an animal in the shelter that has
a broken leg that needs to befixed, that senior student is going to
be involved. In fact, mostlikely would be the primary surgeon repairing that

(10:22):
broken leg, an animal that needsa new creation or a femo headosteectomy.
Not only are these senior students doingroutine health maintenance and medical care of patients
in the shelter and health certificates andstay newter, but they're getting involved in
the more advanced surgical procedures that sheltersfrequently need as well. Sure, I

(10:48):
guess, I guess the trail breakblazing component of all this I would I
would argue that there's two components.One is, our students are getting more
hands on surgical experience than probably anyother veterinary school and any other veterinary students

(11:09):
in the world. They graduate notonly competent, but confident their surgical skills.
Yeah, that's very important actually.And then the second trail blazing thing
of this is we've been able todo it all with grants and donations.

(11:31):
Our college pays the salaries. Mostof the salaries of the faculty and staff
that work in this program, butall of the procedures are funded either by
grants or so there is no chargeto the shelters we work with. And

(11:56):
currently we're working with twenty six differentshelters and rest your groups in the in
the state. And there is nocharge to those rescue groups. Well,
that's wonderful. So so let mejust yeah, let me ask I mean,
that's that's that's incredible. And becausespaying and neutering is just such a

(12:16):
big and like probably the most importantthing to do with your pet. Do
other universities have the same type ofprogram or not as what can I say,
expansive as yours is? Because Ifeel like if every university, veterinary
university had the same type of program, I think our Spain neuter problem in

(12:39):
this country would be pretty insignificant insteadof at the number that it's at.
Well, I think I think noone is, no, none of the
other veterani schools address it quite thesame the same way. Right, We
do have the advantage in the wayour curriculum is constructed. The basic surgery

(13:03):
labs are in the second year ofthe curriculum and not the third and the
third and fourth years of our curriculumare all clinical rotations, and so we
get our students into the clinics ayear earlier than many of the other veterinary

(13:26):
schools, and certainly earlier than allof them, but a full year earlier
than many. So our students aregetting hands on experience, more hands on
experience with you than with other adams. Yes, obviously a significant part of
that, in the part that I'minvolved in is the hands on surgical experience

(13:50):
with space and newters. I suspectthat every veterinary school has. You know,
the days of never mentioning animal sheltersand never talking about ped over population
are probably over in the veterinary schools. I don't think. I don't think
any any of the veterinary schools doit to the level we do right right

(14:11):
now now, there are there areveterinary schools that do a better job than
we do from the standpoint of workingwith shelters on the medical care. You
know, I'm I'm fans of UH. I'm a fan of the shelter program
at Florida UH, and that UCDavis a veterinary school, MH. But

(14:37):
there their emphasis is much more preventivecare and medical care, where our emphasis
is much more preventing unwanted litters,getting animals, you know, intact animals
and shelters, getting them spade andnewted, which is for many of those
animals, is the ticket to gettingthem into a home. Sure, sure,

(15:01):
I mean, I just feel likeit's such a simple solution, and
I'm kind of surprised that other VETschools aren't doing the same type of program,
Like it's almost like a no brainerto me being on the outside looking
in. Well, it is,but I think you have to you have
to recognize that I started doing thisin early nineties, So we're thirty years

(15:28):
in and it wasn't like one daywe turned to switch and we had this
program right. This program, thisprogram has evolved from an infancy in the
early nineties to a more a maturitydirected towards spain neuter thirty years later.

(15:50):
Sure, but there are a lotof along that pathway to get us to
where we are now. Right,So, I think I think it'd be
safe to say most of the otherveterinary schools are on the same pathway.
I think we just started started right, right. No, that makes sense,

(16:11):
and that's I mean, and tome that that's key because that,
to me is just such a sucha big problem with people not spaying or
neutering their pets. And many times, and I get it, they don't
have access to affordable spaying or neutering, so you know, yeah, yeah,
So let me put something to perspectivebecause I know that one of the

(16:34):
focuses of this discussion, and we'rehaving this discussion because this is feline fixed
by five months. Yes, Iwas going to ask you about the first
shelter that I started working with inthe early nineties. When we first started

(16:55):
going, they would not allow usto and neuter animals under six months of
age. This is thirty years ago, but this was the chair of the
board of the shelter and there wasa veterinarian on the board of the shelter,

(17:15):
both of which were absolutely opposed tostay neuter younger than six months of
age. And so the first fewyears we were doing all the adults and
none of the puppies and none ofthe kittens were being spayed and neutered.
And then a shift in the manager, the day to day manager of the

(17:37):
shelter, and I met with thatperson and said, you know this is
crazy. If we really want tohave an impact, we need to be
spaying the puppies and kittens. Wecan do this as young as six to
eight weeks of age, and weshould be doing it on all animals prior
to adoption. That manager bought thatargument totally, and so we sometimes it's

(18:03):
easier to get forgiveness and permission,and so we we simply started doing it
right. And then some time later, I mean just a matter of weeks,
Uh, there was a board meetingfor the shelter, and so we
went to that board meeting and reportedwhat we were doing. And the veterinarian

(18:30):
on the board quit being on theboard, and the chair of the board
resigned from the board because we werespaying in animals, spaying and neutering animals
so young. The thing the thingto realize. And this is where this

(18:53):
is where the debate comes in aboutis it appropriate to spay and newt prior
to six months of age? I'dsay from the eighties to two thoy ten,
that's a guess. Virtually every virtuallyevery veterinary school was teaching wait until

(19:14):
six months, even at Mississippi StateUniversity faculty. And I'm on the faculty
obviously, but faculty, we're teachingwait until six months, and yet I'm
taking students out and we're doing itin six weeks, okay. And so
the profession had standardized six months orolder as the appropriate age to spay or

(19:41):
new either dogs or cats. They'rebeen having graduated in nineteen seventy two,
I'd watched the veterinary profession go fromrecommending that, you know, there's a
reason the estimates for the number ofanimals euthanized in the early seventies was between

(20:07):
fifteen and twenty two million a year. Is at that time they were recommending
that animals have a litter first beforeyou spay or newt to them, right,
I've heard that, yeah, Andthen then that was modified to let
them have one heat cycle first,right, right, And then then then
that was modified to six months ofage, and the profession kind of collaced

(20:33):
around six months of age is theappropriate age? Right? Right, There's
never been any research whatsoever the sportssix months as the appropriate age for spee
neuter you, if you want tojudge it around the reproductive cycle, is

(20:56):
your is your intent? In Spainneuter predominantly to prevent reproduction and if it
is. If it is, wehave to address the fact that cats can
come Female cats can come into heatas young as four months of age.

(21:17):
A female cat can have and gestationperiod is essentially two months long. A
female cat can have a litter ofkittens by the time it's six months,
yeah, and a half months ofso picking it's almost like reach into a
hat and pick out a number.Oh, the number is six. Let's
do it at six. No researchsupport as that's the ideal time. You

(21:45):
know, small breed dogs can comeinto heat before six months of age,
or larger breed dogs come into heatlater. So six months of age is
an arbitrary number that profession coalesced aroundand is what was taught. Right,

(22:06):
So virtually virtually every veterinarian graduating fromveterinary school from say nineteen seventy five the
two thousand was taught you have towait until there's six months of age.
So the majority of veterinarians out thereare simply doing what they were taught correct.

(22:26):
And oh, by the way,if you have questions about when you
should spay or new to your pet, who do you ask? You ask
your veterinarian question your local veterinarian wastaught six months of age, and so
that is permea permeated. The wholeconcept is permeated society as six months of

(22:51):
age is the appropriate age, andthere is no research that supports back right,
and so this radical idea of youknow, back in mid nineties of
Spain and neutering six to eight weekold puppies uh caused a veterinarian to resign

(23:14):
from the board of the shelter Iwas working with, and and and the
chair of the board to resign.They just walked out in a huff,
amazing because they thought it was sowrong, right, right, and yet
and yet, especially in cats.You know, the dog world has gotten
a little bit confused. And wecould do we could do a whole podcast

(23:37):
on my analysis of the research thatmost of which has come out of UC
Davis Veterinary School and the flaws andthat research. But if we if we
put pushed dogs to the side rightnow and focus on cat, right,
we can do the dogs on anotherepisode. We can do that, an

(23:59):
absolutely, I would love to ifwe If we focus on cats, we
start with this premise female cats cancome into heat as young as four months
of age all right, they aresexually mature prior to six months of age.

(24:21):
And there are no studies, zerostudies in cats that document adverse medical
consequences or behavioral consequences from spading andneutering as young as six to eight weeks

(24:49):
none so AB American Vetteranu Medical Association, BAHA, American Animal Hospital Association,
Association of Feline Practitioners, Association ofShelter Veterinarians. Four major professional veterinary associations

(25:11):
have all endorsed the concept put outby in twenty sixteen by the Task Force
on Feline Sterilization that ultimately results inthis fee line six by five campaign.
Four major veterinary associations, fourteen stateveterinary medical associations have endorsed the whole concept

(25:41):
behind stay nuter of cats prior tofive months of age. Where it gets
a little bit confused, maybe,where it gets a little bit confused in
the shelter environment. We're saying theyand neuter prior to adoption. Uh,

(26:03):
And if you're adopted out at eightweeks of age, spay or neuter between
six and eight weeks of age.We we don't recommend that for owned puppies
and kittens for for a very logicalreason which seems to confuse a lot of
people. Right, do you owna puppy or kitten, all right,

(26:30):
and that puppy kitten is in yourhousehold. That household is a pretty safe
environment from the standpoint of the riskof being associated with any infectious diseases.
Right, do you take that puppyor kitten to an environment where the risk

(26:53):
is great? Right? Meaning ananimal hospital. Sure, the risk of
the risk of an animal being toan infectious disease is much greater in an
animal hospital than it is at home. All right, So what we recommend
our own animals is, yes,take the animal to the veterinarian for the
vaccination series, and you routine vaccinationand parasite control, but don't hospitalize that

(27:21):
patient, that puppier kitten at thatage. Let the puppier kitten get all
the way through the vaccination series,which usually is over by sixteen weeks of
age, and then once they're fullyvaccinated, then you set the next appointment.
A lot of veterinarians set up theirvaccinations and parasite control appointments at two

(27:45):
or three week intervals. So you'vebeen taking your puppier kitten to the veterinarian
every two or three weeks, sinceit was six weeks, since you got
it at six to seven or sevenweeks of age. And so let's say
it's let's say it's you get thepuppy, it's seven seven weeks of age,
and your veterinarian says every three weeks, so it's seven weeks, it's

(28:07):
in thet it goes to the clinicfor vaccinations. It's ten weeks. It
goes for vaccinations and parasite control forthirteen weeks, vaccinations and parasite control for
sixteen weeks, vaccinations and parasite controls. It's finished its vaccination series. One
more appointment, nineteen weeks. Nowit's safe. That animal is fully vaccinated.

(28:30):
Now it's safe to hospitalize that animalfor the day for the shade neuter.
And you've still gotten it's spader neuteredbefore five months of age. Right
in the shelter environment, that's adifferent world than home, and the largest,

(28:52):
the greatest risk of infectious disease fora puppy or kitten is to stay
in that shelter environment. All right, and the shelter is vaccinating too.
But these animals are constantly exposed tothe risk of bacterial enviral diseases. So

(29:12):
what you want to do is getthem out of the shelter environment and into
people's homes. And the ticket forgetting them out of the shelter environment and
into people's homes is getting it spaidor neutered. So we push the spady
neuter in the shelter environment as youngas six eight weeks of age, and

(29:33):
we push it in the for theowned pets two between four and five months
of age. Both of those arelogical recommendations for the health and safety of
the pet, right, but thePS two, all of that is for
me. In the animal welfare animalrescue world, we prefer that people get

(29:59):
their their pets from a shelter orrescue so right, because you know,
adopt the shop, don't go topets store because that's puppy mills and everything
else, and why even bother goingto a breeder when the shelters are filled.
So and not to take away fromthe different timetable if it's home or
it's shelter. But you know,most shelters won't adopt out a pet unless

(30:25):
it's already spade or neutered. Andthat's yeah, yeah, and that's if
they're adopted. If they're adopting aboutreproductively intact, they're simply digging their whole
defense because three months later or sixmonths later, they're going to get a
litter of kitten, correct, litterof puppies. Right, So we adopt
out this, we adopted out this, we're just helping kitten or this playful

(30:52):
active puppy, and six months laterwe get fixed back in return. Exactly.
It cuts the opposite of what ashelter, right, Yes, avit
spade or mooted before it goes outof the door. Yeah, And over
time we will know the current estimates, and all we have is estimates,
current estimates. The current estimates arethat now in twenty twenty something, we're

(31:22):
euthanizing one point five million dogs andcats a year in shelters, and it
was ten times that or more fiftyyears ago when I graduated veterinary school.
So we've made tremendous progress in severalfronts. One is in educating people about

(31:45):
the importance of spee neoter and inproviding access to spay neoter. Well,
that's to me is more key isthe access for people. Yeah, well,
very important people. People buy theidea. Now it's just a whole
lot of them can't afford it,correct, Yeah, And so then you

(32:07):
get into the whole realm of lowcost you know, high quality, high
buying, low cost paying hooter clinics, which in the nineties were absolutely controversial.
The profession was fighting them, andnow they've pretty much realized that,

(32:27):
you know, the practicing veterinarians outthere aren't going to lose a client they
never had, right, And ifI can't take if I'm living on a
six to eight hundred dollars Social Securitycheck per year, per month, I'm
not going to take my new puppyto a veterinarian and spend five hundred dollars

(32:49):
spade. You know that's afford itand eighty percent of my income. Yeah,
you're right. So I think theprofession is bought into the concept that
these low cost space neuter clinics dodo quality work, and I have not

(33:10):
putting them out of The private practitionersout of business busier now than they ever
made. We're sure weren't as busyas they are right now. Sure,
Well, let me ask you thisfor those because there there's always the naysayers
in any situation, and I've hadarguments with people over this when and I'm

(33:30):
sure you have heard about people whorefuse to spay or neuter their cat or
dog and their reasoning is it causesmore health problems in the animal, which
I don't believe. But I'm notyou know, I'm a civilian. I
don't have a vet background. Whatdo you say when you hear people say

(33:52):
that, Well, other than putmy hair out, I don't have much
of that, yes, but youknow you know what I mean, right,
You've heard that from people. Absolutely. Yeah. The the literature and
again more in dogs. The literaturehas gotten confused over the last ten years

(34:15):
because of some of the articles thathave been published on what I believe is
pretty weak research. But you know, the sad reality is things are published
online now and you know they're nottrue. If it's on the internet,

(34:35):
it must be true, you know. And so everybody everybody before they talked
to the veterinarian, they talked atdoctor Google and leave was some misinformation.
But there there are several studies thathave looked at the impact of early Spade

(35:08):
Newter. By early, I meanas young as six to eight weeks of
age in cats, and none ofthem, none of the studies have come
up with conditions that are more prevalentbecause an animal with spade under five months

(35:37):
of age. None of them allright, And what's so often missing in
this dialogue, it's the fact thatthe larger the animal is and the older

(35:58):
the animal is, the longer thesurgery takes, the more difficult the surgery
takes. A a spay in atwo pounds or three pound can we gold

(36:22):
kitten is so much easier and somuch faster than in a six to eight
pound six month kitten. Hat thesurgery, the anesthetic times or less,

(36:45):
the surgical times are less, theincidence of hemorrhage is less, recovery times
are faster, and so there's nozero in my professional opinion, there is

(37:05):
zero reason I won't even talk abouth doing a spee or neuter at six
to eight weeks as early age.I talk about doing a spay or neuter
at six months of age being delayed. There is no reason to delay the
surgery until the animal is older andlarger and the surgery is more difficult and

(37:30):
takes longer. There's no reason,especially in cats, and in dogs there
may be a few slightly valid argumentsoccasionally, but not many cats. In
cats, there are no reasons todelay spae neuter past five months of age.

(37:53):
Right, No, so here here, here, here are specific arguments
people have made. Well, inmale cats, it predisposes to urinary obstruction.
Well, that was disproven in thenineties. Their their, their theory.
We shouldn't say this because now someone'sgoing to listen to only this sentence

(38:15):
in the podcast and use it.But their theory is you castrate a castrate
a cat before it's sexually mature,the penis is smaller, the urethra is
smaller, predisposed us to urinary obstruction. Well, there was a research study
in the nineties that looked at urethraldiameters and urethel pressures in intact male cats,

(38:40):
male cats, male cats castrated atseven months of age and male cats
castrated at seven weeks of age andfound zero difference. All right, So
so their basic premise, which makesthem think that urethral obstruction might be more
common, is false. Right,then there's been a lot of research looking

(39:07):
at predisposing factors that contribute to yourretel obstruction in male cats. Several research
papers out there, not a singleone of them comes to the conclusion that
early, earlier castration predisposed us toreteal obstruction. I mean, I could

(39:34):
pull out a reference list and readread your six or eight research articles that
have all looked at what are thethings that predisposed cats to mail cats to
retel obstruction, and none of thosearticles mentioned early castration. None of them
there. Another argument is and herethe basic premise is correct, right,

(40:02):
Removing sex hormones estrogens from females andtestosterone from males causes a slight delay in
the closure of growth plates. Right. The reason we get taller as we

(40:23):
grow up is there are growth platesin all of our long bones that continue
to grow until a certain age.For people, that age is usually around
seventeen eighteen years of age before thosegrowth plates close, and in tats it's

(40:46):
usually closer to nine to twelve monthsof age. And removing the sex hormones,
if you will, causes a slightdelay. Right. So if you
are if you are really really concernedthat your cat might be a half a

(41:10):
centimeter taller, my god, don'thave them castrated, worse trade until after
they were a year of age,but there's been no clinical significance in the
cat. Zero documented clinical significance ofthat delay. One of the things in

(41:32):
dogs is there may be some clinicalsignificance in some cases, but in cats
there's none. And virtually every argumentthat people come up with as to some
condition that might be more common ifthe animal is castrated, it's false in

(41:57):
the cat, you know, butthen then then okay, what about what
about if you delay? Well,the third most common tumor in cats is
memory neoplasia. Ninety six of memoryneoplasias are malignant. The life expectancy of

(42:22):
a cat once it's been diagnosed withmemory neoplasia, whether the cat is treated
or not, on averages less thana year, and the incidence of memory
neoplasia jumps rises as soon as thatcat has had one heat cycle. So

(42:47):
yes, say it before it everhas that heat cycle. You significantly reduced
the chances of memory neoplasia. Sopeople like to stop going to doctor Google
on the Internet to get their information, or or at least if they go
to doctor Google. I would Iwould really support don't go to doctor Google,

(43:13):
right, But but if you dogo to doctor Google, Google,
recognize that d O G. Doesnot not spell cat. And and most
of the negative literature out there ondoctor Google is about d o DS correct.
Well, yeah, and and andso again we could we could have

(43:36):
a podcast later on the whole issue. We will. Yeah, that and
that and that will get even thatwill get more controversial and more exciting if
you will. Okay, But butin cats. There was a veterinarian in
two thousand, a veterinarian who workedin a high line spae nuterer clinic in

(43:57):
UH Atlanta that in the year twothousand and you know, high volume space
nuder clinics hadn't been around, therewere a whole lot of them prior to
two thousand. But she interviewed veterinariansthat were working in high volume space neuter
clinics about the whole issue of pediatricspain neuter UH. And I shouldn't have

(44:23):
brought this up because I'd have togo back and read it because I'm foggy
on some of the numbers. Butthe bottom line was the veterinarians that were
out there doing performing UH spain nooteron puppies and kittens less than five months
of age were unanimous, unanimous.The surgeries were faster the surgeries were easier,

(44:51):
to recovery from antisy was faster,and the level of complications was lower.
Unanimous, and and it's still true, right, And that's what we
need to remind people of over andover and over and over. Feline fixed
by five month, Doctor Phil Bushby. I appreciate all your knowledge, all

(45:15):
your time. I want to definitelytalk to you again on the UC Davis
and dogs. I definitely want totalk to you about that. But I
thank you for all your time andall that you do and keep doing what
you're doing and fighting the good fight, because thank you so much. I
do. I appreciate it. Andyou know, knowledge is power. And

(45:36):
for the listeners who I know arelistening and their animal lovers, this is
very important information that will help savetheir cats and you know dogs too,
So thank you. You convinced oneperson at a time. Eventually you've convinced
enough that's right. So thank you. Thank you for all of your knowledge
and information. You have a goodday. You've never been a rader operator

(46:01):
in the spot. See a latermonicator