#spey

@gothslutbaybee said: Hi there!  I’m in the process of getting an old English sheepdog and the breeder (who is very reputable) asked that I don’t neuter/spay the dog until it’s two years old for “Heath reasons” which she didn’t specify at the time. I’m going to ask her about it when I go to visit the puppies but I was wondering if this is… a valid concern I guess? Personally I’d rather fix them earlier. And if I want to fix it earlier how do I negotiate this with her?

Anonymous said: I recently got a female Labrador retriever puppy and have gotten differing advice on when to have her spayed. One vet said that in larger breed dogs, she prefers to spay after the first heat, usually around 10 to 11 months old. Another vet said she prefers to spay before the first heat, ideally around 9 months old due to the risk of the dog getting pregnant in her first heat. Where do you stand on this and can you explain why later might be better?

There’s a fairly long post about Delayed Desexing from 2017 here, and a few updates here and here.

Note that this topic is relatively new in the veterinary field, with a lot of data being collected in the last 4 years. 4 years compared to the lifetime of a dog isn’t long enough to draw conclusions based on changed desexing recommendations, we probably wont have that for another 15 years, but it’s all we’ve got to make decisions with now.

There are more and more papers coming out with breed-specific risks and benefits related to the age of desexing, but I haven’t come across one for Old English Sheepdogs yet. They may just not be common enough to have enough data yet, certainly not compared to a Labrador or Golden Retriever.

But they are quite big dogs, and based on the data we have for other breeds of a similar size, it’s plausible that delaying desexing will reduce the risk of cruciate injury and may have a small reduction in risk for some cancers. However, the more you delay desexing in a female dog, the more your risk of mammary cancer increases.

Cruciate injuries are not lethal, but they are painful and expensive to treat. Particularly for any sort of sporting prospect, I could see the benefit to delaying desexing for that reason alone until skeletal maturity. For a male dog, 2 years is probably more than enough time, but for a female dog I get antsy about how many heat cycles she’s had so my personal preference is to aim for before the second heat. That said, it’s not wrong to desex earlier, as has traditionally been done.

That’s part of why there’s been so much discussion, there isn’t one right answer, there are at least two right answers and the details can vary so much by breed.

Spaying before the first heat lowers the risk of mammary cancer the most, and removes the risk of an unwanted pregnancy, which for some locations and demographics is a major concern. A shelter is always going to desex everything that walks out the door, they can’t trust the general public to not let their dogs and cats get pregnant or to come back later for the spay. A breeder of a rarer breed may be more discerning with their puppy buyers and have a reasonable amount of trust that they can prevent an unwanted pregnancy. A breeder of miniature poodles might desex every puppy so they can guarantee none will end up in a puppy mill.

Ultimately you get desex when you want to, vets and breeders will have reasons for their preferences, and so will you. The difference between desexing at 15 months vs 24 months is probably not that big for a male dog, but for a female may increase her mammary cancer risk into the uncomfortably risky zone. It’s worth just talking about, and listening.