Y'all all have some very good suggestions. I will try to "accidently" bring up the subject again and maybe she'll be more open.

I would normally think she must have misunderstood, but she seems so bright, otherwise, but it is equally hard to believe a vet could say such a thing.

When she first began her story, I thought what she was going to say was that the vet wouldn't spay her while she was in heat. I was already prepared to educate, because virtually all vets will spay a pregnant or in-season cat. Surgical instruments and techniques have become so advanced this is no longer the problem it was in the past. In fact, my vet no longer charges extra.

But no, she had an even wilder story!

Surprisingly, there is nothing on the internet I could find that addresses this. Every single site I visited only discussed the advantages of spaying before the first heat. Not one listed myths concerned with waiting until after the first heat. Maybe because this is so far out, it has never come up before!

I'll print out some good sites anyway, it still may convince her.

On a sort of related note - longtimers here know of my upstairs neighbors and their ghastly decision to get a couple of kittens a little over a year ago. Well, they are fully mature, unneutered males now, and evidently they started spraying the house, because they have been spending more and more time outdoors - no matter what the weather. It is still way too early in the season to be "cold", but a couple of nights this month the temp has dipped into the forties. Last night, I opened the front door and to my surprise, there was poor little George (looks like Thelma's Charlie) curled up in the cold on my doormat. The people upstairs were home, and he had to have known it because they were making their usual inconsiderate noise. I put some towels in a box and took it out for him, and he curled right up and evidently stayed in it until early this morning.

A little bit of education, compassion, and thinking of a creature other than yourself goes a long way. Too bad there's no required idiot test that people have to pass before they can be allowed to become responsible for a living creature. I know not every one knows everything, and the most intelligent and compassionate of pet owners can still make mistakes, even fatally, but people like those clods upstairs just shouldn't be allowed!