Why We Encourage Ear-Notching, Even For Pets

Here is a sharing from Koo:

A�cat feeder in TTDI contacted me for help to spay a community cat, named Lycia, that she’s feeding at her condo car park as there is a male cat and she wants to avoid a kitten litter. She agreed to sponsor the spaying despite having no fixed income and my own financial limitation. She also agrees to the cat’s ears being v-notched.

I passed her a cage and carrier. She managed to catch the female cat this afternoon and I rushed to the clinic�just before closing time to check the cat for an overnight stay before spaying�tomorrow.

And today:

Dear Dr Chan,

The vet�just informed me that Lycia has been spayed before but never
mind, her ears are v-notched to prevent her suffering another
unnecessary spaying in the future.

Attached is a picture of Lycia taken yesterday for your reference. My
camera is under repair so the picture quality is not that great.

I’ll talked to the feeder and she now suspects it probably had an owner in the past who had spayed her. I think the owner moved away from the condo and decided to just release the cat in the car park area. The cat was really beautiful but its ears was full of ear wax which is sort of�confirmed her stray status.

The story speaks for itself – please ear-notch when you get an animal neutered, particularly the females because for males, the absence of the testicles can be felt in the empty scrotum.

In Singapore, pet-owners take their spayed female cats back to the vet for ear-notching because they know there is a possibility that even pets can run away sometimes. This is after the massive education by NGOs on the importance of ear-notching for spayed animals.

Animals cannot speak for themselves, so sometimes we need to do what is necessary for them. Ear-notching is done during the spaying-neutering surgery under anaesthesia. Compared with the ovarian-hysterectomy (spaying), the small V-cut on the ear is minimal and not life-threatening.

To date, we’ve encountered TEN or more animals, rescued from the street, sent to the vet’s, opened up, and found to have already been previously spayed. The animal has to endure the unnecessary risk of being opened up a second time (or more times, we’ll never know). With so many active rescuers and groups doing neutering these days, ear-notching becomes very necessary.

Please, please consider ear-notching your spayed female animals.

Source: http://myanimalcare.org/2014/07/11/why-we-encourage-ear-notc..

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AnimalCare is a registered society that promotes caregiving to street animals and helps in their neutering and medical needs. AnimalCare has a Medical Fund, Food Fund and Education Fund.

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