One of our vets just called me - this is from the clinic where we had sent 7 of the market cats. The black-and-white one (the one who was looking really sad, remember?) has bad flu, so she could not be spayed. She is now under treatment.
Of the remaining six, five are females and one is male. Amongst the females, TWO have already been previously spayed.
Again??
Unfortunately, the vet had already opened them up to look for the uterus, so they would need to recover from the operation just as any other female that have undergone spaying. We would have to pay in full as well.
However, the vet said upon closer examination, one had a slight flat tip on one ear. Since she had already been spayed, we now can assume that this is the flat tip done by some vets. But this flat tip was not obvious at all since it was very slight and small, and could have passed off as a deformity or an injury on the ear.
So, flat tip or V-notch for community animals?
I now totally understand why our other vet insisted on a prominent V-notch. "It is to remove all doubts", he had emphasized.
YES, he is right.
Now, two females have been unnecessarily opened up, hard-earned donations have been wasted, but most importantly, these two females need not have been subjected to the pain and discomfort of the unnecessary surgery if only their ears have been prominently notched.
Then, just as I ended the call, our other vet called me - this is the one whom we had sent the four cats to.
The 3 males have been done without any incident, but they had just anasthesized the female when our vet noticed an incision line on the abdomen. The line even looks "new". The vet asked if I wanted them to go on or to abort.
Abort, please, don't cut her up, I said. The vet also agreed that it's very possible the incision line of an OHE (spaying).
It's another previously-spayed cat.....making the total to THREE already-spayed cat from yesterday's eleven.
Luckily, this one was detected and the surgery aborted in time.
I told the vet to make the V-notch on her ear since she is still under anaestesia. We certainly do not want her to be opened up again, please.
I called Christopher and Ah Fatt to let them know about this, and both said these 3 cats were not done by them. So, it's probably been done by other rescuers or sometimes people do that before releasing the cats at the marketplace (a place where they can survive).
With more and more people doing spay-neuter, we would really have to think of the welfare of these community cats.
To prevent the females from being opened up twice (or thrice!), please do consider ear-notching (prominently) the cats that have been spayed.
A cat's life-span can stretch up to at least 15 years or more. A slight flat-tip may become unnoticeable with time.
Today, we just encountered one such case - a flat-tip that is not noticeable.
This brings the total of re-opening up already spayed-animals to SIX now (one dog and five cats) from all our cases. The money could have been channelled to help other animals. Most importantly, the animals could have been spared the unnecessary suffering and risk related to the surgery.
Ah Fatt and I will be picking up the 4 cats from our vet and we will return them to the market this evening. The other six will be returned tomorrow or when they are fit for return. The fluey one will be boarded until she recovers. Poor thing....she was trying to tell me something yesterday, I could see it in her eyes. She's not feeling well.
All the spay-neuter and medical treatment is sponsored entirely from our funds.
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