Quote Originally Posted by shawsdanes
My biggest concern with EVERYTHING I have read, that if you wait till after the first heat you are already giving your pup 25% more likely of a chance to get cancer. I am not so sure if I am willing to deal with the fact that my choice gave my pup more of a chance to develop cancer. I will have an in dept convo with our vet. Thanks everyone!!

From everything I've read and heard, there isn't a huge risk if you wait a bit longer to have your dog spayed. I think the percentage only rises about 1-2% or so. IMO, people make such a big deal out of the cancer risk just to scare you into thinking that the dog must be altered ASAP. Personally, with the large breed dogs I fully agree with Sue (Lv4dogs) and would definitley wait until she's a year or older to have her spayed as long as you are a responsible dog owner. I don't know a whole lot about Danes, but I do spend a lot of time around Dobermans as my friend breeds them. When she first began she had her new owners alter their pets around 5-7 months and each of those dogs tower over the ones who were done after a year (the show dogs from the same litter). They're huge. I'm not saying this happens with all dogs, but there are studies to back it up (like the one Sue posted) You've already been given a lot of opinions and info on this subject so I'm not going to say anything else but as I said earlier, I'd wait 'til she's older. That's just me though.