Spaying & Neutering Your Pet

Why should I Spay my dog?

The importance of spaying and neutering your pet goes beyond just preventing unwanted pregnancies and pet overpopulation. There are many health benefits associated with spaying your female pet prior to her first heat cycle. Mammary (breast) cancer rates are drastically reduced when pets are spayed by the time they reach their third heat cycle, this benefit is compounded if the surgery is performed prior to their first heat. This means we prefer to do the spay surgery between 4 and 6 months of age, as most animals come into heat between six and twelve months. Yet another reason to spay is female dogs maintain their uterine lining following a heat cycle for approximately 65 days regardless of whether or not a pregnancy is present. This sets up a perfect environment for infection in pets that are not pregnant. Bacterial growth can lead to a life threatening emergency condition called pyometra (or “pus in the uterus”). The only effective treatment for pyometra is to spay the dog on an emergency basis. Your dog’s life may be threatened and this emergency surgery could end up costing up to four times more than a routine spay. If you plan to breed your dog then please also plan to spay her as soon as she has had her last litter. Although you may not get the benefit from the early spay in reducing cancer rates, you will eliminate the risk of pyometra. If you are not planning on taking on the great responsibility of raising puppies then having your dog spayed early in her life will help her to be a long lived and healthy pet.

Why should I neuter my dog?

Although neutering does not have as many of the obvious health benefits for males that spaying does for females (with the exception of removing the chance for testicular cancer), neutered male pets have a statistically longer life span than non-neutered males. This is because of the behavioral benefits that come with this relatively minor surgery. Removing the testicles prior to six months old will not allow the pet to develop many of the “typical” male behaviors that are undesired. These include inappropriate urination, aggressiveness toward other dogs and in some cases people, and wandering. It is these behaviors, especially wandering, that contribute to the statistically shorter lifespan. Many of these non-neutered animals are hit by cars or end up in shelters and are euthanized due to their need to seek out a female. Pets that are neutered will be much better family companions and although many of the undesirable behaviors will be neutralized, their core personality will not change.