Dear Sinéad and Siouxsie:
Help! My papa says he's going to take me to the vet and get me spayed! What does that mean? What's going to happen to me? I remember going to the vet once, and I thought it was fun until he stuck his fingers in my mouth and poked my tummy with his fingers and then stuck me with a sharp thing and my shoulder hurt for a week. I'm scared!

Shivering and hiding under the bed,
Pandora

Sinéad: Oh dear. It sounds like your papa isn't doing a very good job of talking to you about what's going on. It's a fairly common phenomenon in humans. The silly things think they're the only ones who can talk and understand each other.

Siouxsie: He's a bad, bad man!

Sinéad: No he's not, Siouxsie. He just doesn't realize that Pandora needs him to tell her what's going on. But we'll help you out by explaining to you what getting spayed is.

Siouxsie: You do it. I'm tired.

Sinéad: Fine. Leave the dirty work to me. Basically, getting spayed is having an operation where the veterinarian puts you to sleep and makes a cut in your belly and takes out your uterus and ovaries. That means you won't have to have kittens.

Siouxsie: The vet will tell your papa not to give you any food or water for 12 hours before the operation, so you'll be kind of hungry and thirsty. But they have to fast you before surgery. Our mama had an operation and she had to fast for 12 hours, too, and you should have seen how cranky she was!

Sinéad: Your papa will take you to the vet's office in the morning, probably before he goes to work. If he's really nice, he'll give you some extra love and petties before he leaves. Then the staff will take you out of your carrier and get you ready for your operation by giving you the medicine that puts you to sleep.

Siouxsie: The vet does the operation while you're asleep. When you wake up, you'll find that they shaved your tummy and there's a cut with some stitches holding it shut. It'll hurt some, but the cut will heal up fast and you'll be back to normal in no time.

Sinéad: You'll probably have to stay at the vet hospital overnight so they can make sure that everything went just right with the operation, and then your papa will pick you up and bring you home the next day. You'll probably still be groggy when you get home, and you'll be sore from your operation, so ask your papa to make you a special bed in a warm, safe spot on the floor so that you don't hurt yourself jumping before you're ready.

Siouxsie: Lots of cats get spayed every day. It's not very dangerous as far as operations go. The vet might want your papa to bring you back in a week so you can have your stitches taken out. But Siouxsie and I pulled our own stitches out before Mama could bring us back to the vet!

Sinéad: You should have seen her worry! Every time we nipped out another stitch, she'd keep checking our tummies to make sure our guts hadn't spilled out or something. She didn't realize just how fast we really can heal.

Siouxsie: Don't worry about your belly being shaved, either. The fur will grow back very quickly, and it will be just as elegant and beautiful as it ever was.

Sinéad: So, Pandora, we hope we've eased some of your worries. As we mentioned, we're spayed, too, and it was just fine. We're glad to be spayed, and we're glad our mama loves us enough to take very good care of us and not contribute to the overpopulation of kittens in the world.

Siouxsie: And Pandora's papa--make sure you talk to Pandora about changes in her life or things that involve her. She'll thank you for doing so, and she'll be a lot less nervous about moving, going to the vet, etc. Sure, you may feel kind of silly talking to your cat friend for a while, but you'll get over that. Mama talks to us all the time, and we love it. Sometimes we even talk back!

JaneA: I have a message for people about spaying and neutering: It can be expensive to have a cat spayed, and when the budget is tight, it's easy to forgo spaying. But keep in mind that it's also expensive to raise a bunch of kittens, too. Many humane societies offer low cost spay-neuter clinics, and some veterinarians will be willing to make payment arrangements if necessary; the vets I've known have always been glad to assist people who want to be responsible pet caretakers. There are options; all you have to do is ask.

Got a question? Need some advice? E-mail Sinéad and Siouxsie at advice@paws-and-effect.com. None of the advice in this column is meant to be a substitute for regular veterinary care.