It's a very complicated question at this point because there are so many different foods and food sources and marketing. I think the first thing I would do is to find a person that you can trust. Hopefully, it will be your veterinarian and some other trusted sources. I think picking companies that make food might be one of the first choices that you should think of, some company that you can respect. We at Countryside highly recommend Hill's Science Diet, Royal Canin diets, and Purina diets. Those three companies do make prescription foods for us when we need them, and they are well-respected. They have veterinarians that we can reach out to very easily. They have nutritionists and specialists. So use those as the main guidelines. If you want to deviate from that, try to find out about that company and what particular needs that your animal has that you were trying to achieve by changing foods from there.

If you have a male cat that’s doing that because there are other cats in heat in the neighborhood, and he's being vocal, that may help stop that. Cats that are spayed and neutered should have normal loving behavior, the same behavior that you had before you spayed and neutered them. If they talked a lot and were very vocal and friendly, then they'll still be just like that.

With female cats, their behavior is about the same but they don't come into heat. They can come into heats many times per year and they are meowing a lot, as they're uncomfortable. Their behavior is definitely different than your normal cat. The male cats are going to wander further away if they're outside. They can get into catfights with other cats and so they also do spraying, as spraying is marking their territory. And they're most likely to do that if they're unfixed. So by neutering though, we're going to reduce a lot of those behaviors.

Spaying and neutering your cat has a ton of benefits. Number one, we're less likely to have a lot of unwanted cats and kittens. They can't find homes, or they might be out in the wild. Two, it has its medical benefits because the cats can't get testicular cancer, ovarian cancer, or breast cancer because they have been spayed or neutered. Behaviorally speaking, the male cats are not going to roam as far, they're going to make just a little bit better pets, and they're not going to get in fights with other cats. The girl cats won't come into heat three to six times a year. And in both cases, it will decrease the chance of them having sexually transmitted diseases.

There are many health issues that we can prevent, and it's much better for your pets to prevent disease than it is to treat it when it happens. One of the most common things we see in a female cat or dog is breast cancer or mammary tumors. These are very expensive to remove, and in some cases, they get too big and we can't remove them. There are many pets that suffer, as the tissue becomes swollen, it ulcerates, and they can get very sick and this can eventually spread and metastasize through the body. There is another very common condition called pyometra, which is an infection of the uterus. It occurs after their heat cycle. It's life-threatening and can kill them within a few days. It’s very preventable with a simple procedure to spay the female cat or dog. In a male dog, there are fewer hidden reasons. An obvious one would be if you don't have testicles, you cannot get testicular cancer. Older dogs and cats can get a condition called benign prostatic hyperplasia. The enlarged prostate makes it very uncomfortable for them to urinate or defecate. We can fix that at the time by castrating them, but it takes a few months for the prostate to shrink and they suffer in that period. It can also prevent straying. Intact male animals will be more likely to go and look for a female, and they can get into trouble fighting other neighborhood cats, spraying, marking the territory, and getting into road traffic accidents. Unless you're breeding, there's really no reason to leave your pets intact unless you have a police dog, a working dog, or a field trial pet—they're just more baby-like easier to, and more fun to have around if you fix them.

Dogs that are not spayed or neutered will be under the influence of testosterone or estrogen depending on their sex. We were all 18 once. You remember what those things made you want to do, so dogs are no different. So it can avoid any unwanted behaviors, any unwanted litters to overpopulate our little pet community. And it also prevents several medical issues that are very, very undesirable as well. Uterine infections, aggression, unwanted marking, all those kinds of things can be avoided if they are spayed or neutered at an early age.

It can make them be healthier and have a far better quality of life. It decreases the risk of cancers such as ovarian and uterine, and testicular cancer. It also helps prostate issues in male dogs, and it reduces the risk of a very deadly infection of the uterus called pyometra in female dogs.

Actually, the answer to that is no. The reason is, is because when cats come into heat, it increases the chance of them having breast cancer later on in life. And so in order to almost 100% eliminate breast cancer in cats, if you spay them at six months of age before they come into heat, we can eliminate that.

No. I hear that a lot, that, "Oh, I've heard my grandma told me they're supposed to have one heat cycle before, or even a litter before." No, there's no medical proof to back that up. In fact, if anything, I would argue the opposite. I would argue that there is medical proof to back up the fact that certain animals, females in particular, can develop mammary cancer. Let me say that in a different way, cats can develop mammary cancer more frequently if they've had multiple heat cycles. So spaying them at an earlier age makes that percentage lower.

At the very minimum when they're a puppy and they're getting vaccines, we should see them every three weeks until they’re about four months of age but, after that, we should see them on an annual basis.