Gotta say, I admire the skills of people that spay their own dogs on a kitchen table. My wife's dad took out his kid's tonsils similarly when they were small.
As for cats, I didn't like them for a long time. (warning, long story) I gentled horses for extra money in high school and when I came home from boot camp I was allergic to horses and cats. Don't know what triggered that, but it is what it is. So being allergic made it miserable visiting people with cats.
My wife is a cat person, but the cats had to be outside. I started being interested in cats due to my wife's appreciation of them, but the allergies prevented them being something I could handle. One year when we'd been married for a dozen years or so, the kids wanted to give my wife a kitten. A cute little calico and I didn't seem to be allergic like with an adult. So I told them we could have it in the house until I showed signs of allergies.
I played HARD with with that kitten, and it grew. As it grew, and I played with it, the cat shredded my hands and arms with its claws... and I never had allergies again. My allergies to horses disappeared too. The allergens getting into my bloodstream from playing with the cat cured me.
When we bought the ranch in South Dakota we didn't realize the people that had been living there before us had hoarded cats and everyone in the surrounding area knew it. The ranch was a dumping ground for cats. When the former tenants moved they took most of their cats with them, but we'd see people stop at the top of the 1/4 mile driveway and in a short time there would be another cat hanging around.
I didn't want them, so at first we'd trap them and take them into Sturgis, to the animal shelter. The guy at the shelter let it slide that all the cats were euthanized as soon as we left them because the shelter was overrun with people dumping cats. And It was a long drive to take them in, and time and money adding up. So I started shooting every new cat that showed up. One week I had nine new cats that were dumped, and it was a rare week when we didn't have at least two. We let it be known in town that we were shooting cats and we got some evil looks... but eventually the dumping slowed down even though it never ended completely.