Neutering/Spaying: What age?

[Pawsitive Thinking]

Tobey was neutered at 6 months on the advice of the vet and I guess Archie was done at about the same age.

[cloverfdx]

Penny - About 3 or 4 years old, i would have liked her to be done earlier but it was not up to me.

Clover - 3 years old, same as above. Desexing her later was not so bad, she did calm down with in days and was trying to play with dogs shge did not like when entie . Clover has also become incontinent in the past 6 months or so.. i dont know if that has anything to do with her being desexed late or what.

Theo - 7 month old. He acts like an entire male, marking, checking out the 1 entire 'girl' we know.

Elvis - Also 7 months, wish i had of waited longer with him, atleast 12 - 14 months for growth and maturity reasons. Although he possibly still has a testicle left over.. blood tests in the next couple of weeks will tell us.

Tinny - Her old owners got her done after her first season, El and Tin's Dad was often caught sniffing around the farm after her so they had her done asap after that.

Harri - Has not been done yet, i would wait until he is atleast 12 months before having him done. He is going to be shown for a while and we will see how he goes, but he has a slighty overshot jaw & he was never going to be bred from, so he will be done eventually. Oh and his breeder said to defintely have hime done if he and Elvis start having problems or he starts marking inside etc.

NB: Harri in no way will be alowed to roam, we are resposible dog owners and i have no desire what so ever to ever breed & add to the over population .

Kay you will know when the time is right, you know your boy better than anyone and will know if nawtee habits start showing themselves.

[Logan]

Kay,

Both of my "girls", Lilly and Honey, were done as soon as my vet said they could be, before they ever went into their first heat. It was 5 months old, for both of them.

I asked Mack's breeder about the best time to neuter him since we had absolutely no plans to use him as a stud, even though I'm certain he would have been a good one! We tried to wait until he was fully developed, one year old, but he did become aggressive, and he was neutered at 10 months old. You might remember that he got into it with a foster Golden Retriever, and he "lost" the fight, but we knew it was time. He did just fine. He has not settled down completely, yet, and we won't even attempt to foster for a while now, but had the breeder not said that we should wait until one year, we would have done it at six months.

I think with Moo being already six months old, you couldn't go wrong going ahead and neutering him, but it is your decision, with advise from your vet.

Good luck.
Logan

[bckrazy]

I feel that mixed breed dogs & pet dogs *unless they're giant breeds* should be neutered/spayed before they're sexually mature and able to reproduce... ideally 6 months. Fozzie was neutered at 6 months, and even if the rescue didn't require him to be neutered by then, I would've done it.

I know we're all responsible owners here, but accidents CAN and DO happen. Not only that... but an unaltered dog is much more likely to feel the need to roam. And, unfortunately, most people don't even realize when their female dogs are in heat; much less do they keep them locked away during it. I definitely want to prevent my dogs running off and impregnating unattended female dogs as much as I possibly can. Plus, lots of behavior problems really are avoided when those raging hormones are subdued. That is compared to the few and rare affects of speutering at 6 months.

That said, I definitely would avoid altering any young puppy. 4-6 months is ideal, imho. And puppies do heal incredibly fast & easily!

[CathyBogart]

Dogs can be altered as young as six weeks old with no health/behavioral side effects. In fact, young puppies recover much more quickly from the anesthesia and the surgery itself than an adult dog does.

Having the sex hormones in the body while the dog is maturing results in the growth plates closing six to eight weeks earlier than in the altered dog. Some people speculate that this may predispose the animal to injury, but there isn't any solid evidence to back that up.

Waiting to spay a female until after her second heat takes away any protection you would have gotten from mammary cancer. Mammary cancer is the most common form of cancer in dogs, and around half of all mammary tumors are malignant. I think it's worthwhile, if you aren't planning on breeding the bitch, to spay before the second heat.

Plus, having seen three pyometras in the last two weeks, I'm all for ANYTHING that prevents that!