The convo about Spay & Neuter
This is much the same that I have been saying for years about spay and neutering - and the research that says to wait until older. The below was written by a veterinarian/ writer, Deb Johnson. I highly recommend you give her a follow as her insights are eye opening. - https://www.facebook.com/deb.johnson.775
This is from/written by Deb Johnson...long time veterinarian for horses and dogs...
When I was a kid working at a veterinary clinic in the late 80s the suggested time to spay and neuter your dog or cat was 6 months. That seemed to be considered the average age of sexual maturity and in order to not have population overgrowth it was recommended to spay/neuter at that age. By the time I graduated from veterinary school the early spay/neutering had taken off and it was recommended to spay or neuter anytime after weaning. The clinic I first worked was also where all the “pound” animals were kept and anything being adopted had to be spay/neutered before it left and I would spay or neuter animals at 4-6 weeks of age. When I came back to mixed animal practice after almost a decade away the pendulum had started to swing and it has now swung to the idea of not spaying or neutering your pet until it is at least 3 if even at all.
When should one spay or neuter their dog or cat?! The humane society still does it at any age and I do not blame them. Specialty clinics and more “modern” veterinary clinics are all about waiting until the dog is at least three if not older because “research” shows an increase in cruciate tears and arthritis in spayed or neutered dogs. No one seems to care that by trying to “save” the dogs on one hand we are killing dogs on the other because most people can not keep their dog from getting knocked up. The amount of unwanted, unhomed puppies is astronomical because we humans only care about what we want and not what is actually best for the animals that we allow to be created. Personally I do not feel like there is a simple answer to this question because there are way too many variables.
First, every study on all the bads caused by spaying and neutering out there are retrospective. That means that they choose the cases that they look at and take data from what they choose. The only way to do this is to go to teaching hospitals or large specialty clinics because that is the “easiest” way to get the information and they put in their search parameters and then take that and write papers that come across as being fact when the truth is they are just numbers and opinions and not necessarily facts. Again, you can prove anything you want with a “retrospective” study by selecting for the criteria that you want to fit into your opinion or idea. The cost to keep dogs for a lifetime and actually see if their theory is true is not only incredibly costly but it would take 12+ years and who wants to invest that much time into actually discovering the truth?! So they just go back and look at data that supports their thoughts and put it out there as fact.
Ask yourself how many of the labs or Goldens or whatever breed has an owner that can afford to go to a specialty clinic or veterinary teaching hospital for treatment? What would you think is the percentage of all of the dogs of that breed? According to Specialist Chat only 15% of clients seek specialty care so the “truth” is being taken from only 15% of the total animals out there. What about the other 85% of animals that have owners that can not afford specialty care and are just taken care of by us in private practice? Do those animals not have anything to offer in regard to what should be considered truth? Not to mention the fact that the animals that go to specialty practices are only seen a few times by the “company” and not for a lifetime like those that go to private practices.
I opened my practice in 2008 which gives me almost 2 decades of information and I have the unique position of taking care of patients for their entire lives. I work every damn day that I am in town and I am a bit of a control freak and even though I fight hard against it, I still keep a close eye on all the animals that come through our doors. For the first decade it was pretty much just me. For the last decade I have been the only clinic in two counties because being in rural America is hard this has afforded me the ability to be involved in a huge number of animals lives for their entire life which I feel is more accurate than any retrospective study because I am not picking what I want to see but rather I have all of the animals to give me data.
So, what are my thoughts after almost 2 decades in the same spot seeing thousands of animals? Spay and neuter your damn dog whenever you want. There is no perfect timing. I see intact dogs with cruciate tears and horrible arthritis all the time and cancer and all the other diseases they say they won’t get if you wait! If you want to know what I really think it is that our dog foods are killing our dogs and destroying them just like our human overly processed foods are killing us and destroying our health as humans! All the preservative and crap that dogs shouldn’t eat, that is creating incredibly inflammation in the body all the time. If you want to blame something, blame over processed foods and lazy owners who get dogs they don’t exercise.
Does the hormonal part have something to do with it, sure, but it is not all of it nor the majority of it! We humans keep our parts and ACL tears are one of the most common orthopedic conditions in humans so how do you make that work if it is only about hormones? And then if you throw in arthritic diseases in humans, oh my, don't we all struggle with that and yet most all of us still have our parts. I tore my ACL and I still had all my working parts and they were still functioning. According to my surgeon who was in his 70s, the main reason for ACL tears is imbalance between the quads and hamstrings and when the sudden forces happen and the muscle fire to try and stabilize the joint the quads overpower the hams and that pulls the femur hard forward tearing the ACL and allowing the femur to slam against the front of the tibia creating a tibial plateau fracture. It was not my hormones or lack there of that allowed it to happen it was my poor physical condition and crappy diet.
Why is it in the discussion of when to spay and neuter your dog no one talks about how most dogs are couch potatoes and they eat highly processed food that creates tons of inflammation and so when they run after that ball or jump to get the cat or run and step in a hole that they have no ability for their body to actually stabilize the joint and it probably has very little to do with their hormones and everything to do with lack of exercise and poor nutrition and toxin overload? Why is it only the time of spaying and neutering that is looked at and to all the other contributing factors? What about the fact that most dogs live in crates for most of their day and then because owners feel guilty they take them out and throw ball for them and not shocking at all that they injure themselves, you would too!
If I allow my conspiracy mind to work, ask yourself who benefits the most if you don’t spay or neuter your dog and you allow it to keep its parts and then it develops cancer or pyometra or gets out in the road because it is looking for love and gets hit by a car? You can have your dog spayed and it is going to cost you X amount of dollars or you can wait and then when it develops a pyometra it is going to cost you 10 times the amount. Or it gets knocked up and needs a c-section. Or develops mammary cancer and has to have a whole chain mastectomy. Or it bleeds all over your house and furniture and you throw it outside and Tramp is cruising by and knocks your Lady up and you have a dozen puppies that you then have to pay to take care of and vaccinate and feed and find homes for.
From my little corner of the world, where I have thousands of dogs that I care for over their entire lifespan, having the uterus and huevos has less to do with all the issues than the inflammatory diets and lack of exercise! Not saying it does not have some role but it is a much smaller percentage than they scare you with in my opinion. None of the studies I have read, and I have read a lot of them, have gone into the home and asked questions as to what the dog ate, what its exercise regimen was, how the dog was cared for, how long each day it was crated, did it have a yard to play in and how much time did it get to be out there being a dog etc etc. They just pull hospital records and make an opinion and start telling everyone what is best for their dog when the truth is it is just one very small slice of the pie.
For the average dog I recommend spaying and neutering at any time after 6 months because who wants to deal with your dog bleeding all over your house, gross. For giant breeds I like to wait until at least a year because they are slower to mature. Bottomline is the people’s thoughts and opinions change like the latest hair styles. Three decades ago it was ok to spay and neuter at any age, “proved” by science. Now they want you to never spay or neuter your dog as “proved” by science with no mention of environment or diet in any of the “research”. Having recommended spaying and neutering dogs for the past two decades at six months and kept them as patients, those animals seem to live just as healthy of lives if not even healthier than the ones that come into me at 8 or 10 with open mammary cancers or pus running out their vaginas because their uterus is trying to kill them.
This is from/written by Deb Johnson...long time veterinarian for horses and dogs...
When I was a kid working at a veterinary clinic in the late 80s the suggested time to spay and neuter your dog or cat was 6 months. That seemed to be considered the average age of sexual maturity and in order to not have population overgrowth it was recommended to spay/neuter at that age. By the time I graduated from veterinary school the early spay/neutering had taken off and it was recommended to spay or neuter anytime after weaning. The clinic I first worked was also where all the “pound” animals were kept and anything being adopted had to be spay/neutered before it left and I would spay or neuter animals at 4-6 weeks of age. When I came back to mixed animal practice after almost a decade away the pendulum had started to swing and it has now swung to the idea of not spaying or neutering your pet until it is at least 3 if even at all.
When should one spay or neuter their dog or cat?! The humane society still does it at any age and I do not blame them. Specialty clinics and more “modern” veterinary clinics are all about waiting until the dog is at least three if not older because “research” shows an increase in cruciate tears and arthritis in spayed or neutered dogs. No one seems to care that by trying to “save” the dogs on one hand we are killing dogs on the other because most people can not keep their dog from getting knocked up. The amount of unwanted, unhomed puppies is astronomical because we humans only care about what we want and not what is actually best for the animals that we allow to be created. Personally I do not feel like there is a simple answer to this question because there are way too many variables.
First, every study on all the bads caused by spaying and neutering out there are retrospective. That means that they choose the cases that they look at and take data from what they choose. The only way to do this is to go to teaching hospitals or large specialty clinics because that is the “easiest” way to get the information and they put in their search parameters and then take that and write papers that come across as being fact when the truth is they are just numbers and opinions and not necessarily facts. Again, you can prove anything you want with a “retrospective” study by selecting for the criteria that you want to fit into your opinion or idea. The cost to keep dogs for a lifetime and actually see if their theory is true is not only incredibly costly but it would take 12+ years and who wants to invest that much time into actually discovering the truth?! So they just go back and look at data that supports their thoughts and put it out there as fact.
Ask yourself how many of the labs or Goldens or whatever breed has an owner that can afford to go to a specialty clinic or veterinary teaching hospital for treatment? What would you think is the percentage of all of the dogs of that breed? According to Specialist Chat only 15% of clients seek specialty care so the “truth” is being taken from only 15% of the total animals out there. What about the other 85% of animals that have owners that can not afford specialty care and are just taken care of by us in private practice? Do those animals not have anything to offer in regard to what should be considered truth? Not to mention the fact that the animals that go to specialty practices are only seen a few times by the “company” and not for a lifetime like those that go to private practices.
I opened my practice in 2008 which gives me almost 2 decades of information and I have the unique position of taking care of patients for their entire lives. I work every damn day that I am in town and I am a bit of a control freak and even though I fight hard against it, I still keep a close eye on all the animals that come through our doors. For the first decade it was pretty much just me. For the last decade I have been the only clinic in two counties because being in rural America is hard this has afforded me the ability to be involved in a huge number of animals lives for their entire life which I feel is more accurate than any retrospective study because I am not picking what I want to see but rather I have all of the animals to give me data.
So, what are my thoughts after almost 2 decades in the same spot seeing thousands of animals? Spay and neuter your damn dog whenever you want. There is no perfect timing. I see intact dogs with cruciate tears and horrible arthritis all the time and cancer and all the other diseases they say they won’t get if you wait! If you want to know what I really think it is that our dog foods are killing our dogs and destroying them just like our human overly processed foods are killing us and destroying our health as humans! All the preservative and crap that dogs shouldn’t eat, that is creating incredibly inflammation in the body all the time. If you want to blame something, blame over processed foods and lazy owners who get dogs they don’t exercise.
Does the hormonal part have something to do with it, sure, but it is not all of it nor the majority of it! We humans keep our parts and ACL tears are one of the most common orthopedic conditions in humans so how do you make that work if it is only about hormones? And then if you throw in arthritic diseases in humans, oh my, don't we all struggle with that and yet most all of us still have our parts. I tore my ACL and I still had all my working parts and they were still functioning. According to my surgeon who was in his 70s, the main reason for ACL tears is imbalance between the quads and hamstrings and when the sudden forces happen and the muscle fire to try and stabilize the joint the quads overpower the hams and that pulls the femur hard forward tearing the ACL and allowing the femur to slam against the front of the tibia creating a tibial plateau fracture. It was not my hormones or lack there of that allowed it to happen it was my poor physical condition and crappy diet.
Why is it in the discussion of when to spay and neuter your dog no one talks about how most dogs are couch potatoes and they eat highly processed food that creates tons of inflammation and so when they run after that ball or jump to get the cat or run and step in a hole that they have no ability for their body to actually stabilize the joint and it probably has very little to do with their hormones and everything to do with lack of exercise and poor nutrition and toxin overload? Why is it only the time of spaying and neutering that is looked at and to all the other contributing factors? What about the fact that most dogs live in crates for most of their day and then because owners feel guilty they take them out and throw ball for them and not shocking at all that they injure themselves, you would too!
If I allow my conspiracy mind to work, ask yourself who benefits the most if you don’t spay or neuter your dog and you allow it to keep its parts and then it develops cancer or pyometra or gets out in the road because it is looking for love and gets hit by a car? You can have your dog spayed and it is going to cost you X amount of dollars or you can wait and then when it develops a pyometra it is going to cost you 10 times the amount. Or it gets knocked up and needs a c-section. Or develops mammary cancer and has to have a whole chain mastectomy. Or it bleeds all over your house and furniture and you throw it outside and Tramp is cruising by and knocks your Lady up and you have a dozen puppies that you then have to pay to take care of and vaccinate and feed and find homes for.
From my little corner of the world, where I have thousands of dogs that I care for over their entire lifespan, having the uterus and huevos has less to do with all the issues than the inflammatory diets and lack of exercise! Not saying it does not have some role but it is a much smaller percentage than they scare you with in my opinion. None of the studies I have read, and I have read a lot of them, have gone into the home and asked questions as to what the dog ate, what its exercise regimen was, how the dog was cared for, how long each day it was crated, did it have a yard to play in and how much time did it get to be out there being a dog etc etc. They just pull hospital records and make an opinion and start telling everyone what is best for their dog when the truth is it is just one very small slice of the pie.
For the average dog I recommend spaying and neutering at any time after 6 months because who wants to deal with your dog bleeding all over your house, gross. For giant breeds I like to wait until at least a year because they are slower to mature. Bottomline is the people’s thoughts and opinions change like the latest hair styles. Three decades ago it was ok to spay and neuter at any age, “proved” by science. Now they want you to never spay or neuter your dog as “proved” by science with no mention of environment or diet in any of the “research”. Having recommended spaying and neutering dogs for the past two decades at six months and kept them as patients, those animals seem to live just as healthy of lives if not even healthier than the ones that come into me at 8 or 10 with open mammary cancers or pus running out their vaginas because their uterus is trying to kill them.