Two months ago I wrote a commentary about spaying and neutering in which I quoted study results complied by one group that were misquoted by the author of another article. The legitimate confusion this generated as well as some of the highly emotional e-mails I received about that commentary has led me to think about the role emotions play in this issue. But first, the correction.
I wrote that dogs younger than a year who were spayed or castrated have about a one in four lifetime risk of developing bone cancer and are significantly more likely to develop this than intact animals. What the article I was using failed to note was that the study (“Endogenenous Gonadal Hormone Exposure and Bone Sarcoma Risk,” Dawn M. Cooley et al. Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers and Prevention, Vol. 11, 1434-1440, November 2002) was done on 71,004 rottweilers. Thus based on the study we can say that delaying spaying or castration until sexual maturity confers some protection against bone cancer in this breed, but we can’t say anything about that relationship in any other breeds.
Now on to the responses I received about that commentary. To me, the first intriguing point regarding these was that none of the negative comments challenged the above unintentional misrepresentation of information. The one e-mail that did was very thoughtful and I immediately realized my error. Hence the above correction. That the negative e-mails did not address the data could have occurred for several reasons. One is that studies comparing intact and sterilized companion animal populations seem more likely to show up in obscure scientific journals than veterinary ones, even when the researchers are veterinarians.
The second reason why none of the negative e-mails I received challenged the scientific findings could be because scientific evidence is not an issue that warranted their writers’ consideration. Instead of analyzing or even condemning the studies that I described, they took a purely emotion-driven kill-the-messenger approach.
One typical of this genre said that, even if I didn’t mind living with male dogs who lift their legs on everything and females who bleed all over place, other people didn’t want to live like that. At the same time as the mental image those naive comments elicited made me, Ms. Anal-Neat-As-a-Pin, chuckle, this and similar comments saddened me because these people obviously believe that their righteous indignation renders even the most basic knowledge of normal canine physiology and behavior unnecessary. Worse, they have so much energy tied up in their emotions demanding mandatory spay and neuter for all dogs and cats that there’s none left for the difficult task of objectivity evaluating the science and ethics underlying this extremely complex subject.
The other reason these emotion-driven responses are so troubling takes us back to the fact that so few of the articles comparing intact and sterilized companion animals show up where you would expect them: in the veterinary, humane, or animal welfare literature. Logic says this occurs because these researchers don’t submit their findings to those journals, or those journals won’t publish them if the researchers do. When I ask myself why this would happen, one explanation that comes to mind is that neither the researchers nor the journal editors want to deal with the emotional fall-out, no matter how rigorous the research or beneficial the results for animals. Having had a mild sampling of that, I can understand this. On the other hand, I must ask myself how long we’re going to keep using the image of unwanted puppies and kittens or fantasies regarding the disgusting behaviors of intact animals as a shield to protect ourselves from open and thoughtful examination of the effects of sterilization on the animal to whom it is done.
Thirty years ago, the lowest form of pet-owners were the person who got dogs or cats and bred them so their kids could see the miracle of birth. We now live in a society in which a child’s first memory may be of the beloved family pet dying of or being euthanized for cancer or some other immune-mediated disease for which no cure is known. Frankly, I don’t see that as a valid trade-off and certainly not one that will ensure a healthy companion animal population in the years to come. If there’s some link between these and other diseases and spay and neuter, let’s find out what it is. Then we can make a rational decision whether the price that all sterilized animals and their species are being asked to pay for the behavior of an irresponsible portion of human population is worth it.
Two months ago I wrote a commentary about spaying and neutering in which I quoted study results complied by one group that were misquoted by the author of another article. The legitimate confusion this generated as well as some of the highly emotional e-mails I received about that commentary has led me to think about the role emotions play in this issue. But first, the correction.
I wrote that dogs younger than a year who were spayed or castrated have about a one in four lifetime risk of developing bone cancer and are significantly more likely to develop this than intact animals. What the article I was using failed to note was that the study (“Endogenenous Gonadal Hormone Exposure and Bone Sarcoma Risk,” Dawn M. Cooley et al. Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers and Prevention, Vol. 11, 1434-1440, November 2002) was done on 71,004 rottweilers. Thus based on the study we can say that delaying spaying or castration until sexual maturity confers some protection against bone cancer in this breed, but we can’t say anything about that relationship in any other breeds.
Now on to the responses I received about that commentary. To me, the first intriguing point regarding these was that none of the negative comments challenged the above unintentional misrepresentation of information. The one e-mail that did was very thoughtful and I immediately realized my error. Hence the above correction. That the negative e-mails did not address the data could have occurred for several reasons. One is that studies comparing intact and sterilized companion animal populations seem more likely to show up in obscure scientific journals than veterinary ones, even when the researchers are veterinarians.
The second reason why none of the negative e-mails I received challenged the scientific findings could be because scientific evidence is not an issue that warranted their writers’ consideration. Instead of analyzing or even condemning the studies that I described, they took a purely emotion-driven kill-the-messenger approach.
One typical of this genre said that, even if I didn’t mind living with male dogs who lift their legs on everything and females who bleed all over place, other people didn’t want to live like that. At the same time as the mental image those naive comments elicited made me, Ms. Anal-Neat-As-a-Pin, chuckle, this and similar comments saddened me because these people obviously believe that their righteous indignation renders even the most basic knowledge of normal canine physiology and behavior unnecessary. Worse, they have so much energy tied up in their emotions demanding mandatory spay and neuter for all dogs and cats that there’s none left for the difficult task of objectivity evaluating the science and ethics underlying this extremely complex subject.
The other reason these emotion-driven responses are so troubling takes us back to the fact that so few of the articles comparing intact and sterilized companion animals show up where you would expect them: in the veterinary, humane, or animal welfare literature. Logic says this occurs because these researchers don’t submit their findings to those journals, or those journals won’t publish them if the researchers do. When I ask myself why this would happen, one explanation that comes to mind is that neither the researchers nor the journal editors want to deal with the emotional fall-out, no matter how rigorous the research or beneficial the results for animals. Having had a mild sampling of that, I can understand this. On the other hand, I must ask myself how long we’re going to keep using the image of unwanted puppies and kittens or fantasies regarding the disgusting behaviors of intact animals as a shield to protect ourselves from open and thoughtful examination of the effects of sterilization on the animal to whom it is done.
Thirty years ago, the lowest form of pet-owners were the person who got dogs or cats and bred them so their kids could see the miracle of birth. We now live in a society in which a child’s first memory may be of the beloved family pet dying of or being euthanized for cancer or some other immune-mediated disease for which no cure is known. Frankly, I don’t see that as a valid trade-off and certainly not one that will ensure a healthy companion animal population in the years to come. If there’s some link between these and other diseases and spay and neuter, let’s find out what it is. Then we can make a rational decision whether the price that all sterilized animals and their species are being asked to pay for the behavior of an irresponsible portion of human population is worth it.