just had a call from someone to say they won't be at class this week or next as they are taking their 21 week border terrier to be spayed
They got her from R$PCA and had to sign a contract saying this would be done, they are not too happy about it but were told they had to sign and get it done ...'we will check up to confirm'!!!

Poor bitch.  Everything taken away before it's fully grown.  I really hate this.

That is awful, I thought this outmoded thinking had stopped, I would be contacting my vet and getting them to send a letter to the RSPCA outlining the reasons why pups should not be neutered so young and their unwillingness to carry out such surgery.

glad i'm not alone in thinking that way. I thought they were a major consultee on the Animal Welfare act, so how they justify this thinking with the reccomendations is anyones guess

Back in 1980, we got a Cairn Terrier pup from the RSPCA kennels.     They told us we had to neuter at 6 months, a month after she arrived with us, and that they would check up.  It was written in the adoption contract.    They would also be keeping in touch to make sure she was well cared for and they could take her back if she wasn't.

The vet refused to neuter at 6 months, told us to come back in a year or so.     The RSPCA kennels never got in touch - ever, in the whole of her very long life.

So I'm wondering, how often do they check?    Do they ever keep in touch?     Strikes me they rehome so many dogs it would cost a fortune to keep track of all of them.

They are so stupid do they not understand animals at all. It is down right cruel in my opinion to take a dog that has only spent a few days or weeks in their new home to have a GA they will not have full confidence in their owners yet and will, no doubt, be very stressed and upset by such an experience to say nothing of the spaying of animals before they are mature. OK with farm animals because they are not going to live to maturity but a pet dog may live to suffer.

In our case we neutered when she was 16    She was fine until then but had a pyo.  Bounced back like a puppy and lived another 2 1/2 years.

This fashion for early neutering isn't in the bitch's best interests, but when you see how many people are using their bitch as a money spinner, I can see why it's advised.   Sadly, the people who will neuter early on advice, aren't the ones that see their bitch as a cash machine, so the wrong ones are being neutered :(

> so the wrong ones are being neutered :-(

Quite it's the irresponsible owners that should perhaps be neutered, LOL

> so the wrong ones are being neutered

Indeed!  Whilst I understand the rescue's argument behind routine neutering of their charges and the whole pro-neutering campaign, it is deeply flawed and in the real world, makes no difference whatsoever to irresponsible or accidental breeding and the rescue situation as a whole, because the people producing all the "excess" pups are the people who won't neuter.  If it made any difference, we wouldn't have more dogs (and cats, and all animals) in rescue than ever before.

I mean, how long has the standard neutering thing been going on now?  A couple of decades?  If it was going to make a dent on the number of dogs in rescue surely it would have done by now.  Quite why they think that neutering at 21 weeks is going to make any more difference is beyond me - never mind the health and possible behavioural implications :-(

I think with more acceptance of negative consequences of neuteering early, perhaps the rescues would consider tubal ligation and vasectomies of puppies in their care and only neuter mature animals.