I've been thinking about keeping the malamute I've right now. She is only a year old, I really dislike premature spaying, but I don't want to breed her because she does not cut the standard. She is definitely going through some changes as she is experiencing incontinence. Could just be a pre-estrus problem, or if her horomones are really going out of whack. I'm sure spaying her right now would just make the problem even worse. Her next heat will come about a month from now judging from her last heat.

So, I've been thinking to have the tubes tied instead. So there would still be estrogen produced. I never mind heat, though I'm kind of curious if dogs can also develop PTLS. Does anyone know of problems which surround tubal ligation in dogs?

I must say after all the dogs I've had, I've never had to go through problems of incontinence. Oh the joys of development.

NOTE: This thread isn't meant for bs'ers who say spaying/neutering doesn't affect dogs. bs'ers, please don't bother to reply.

I haven't heard much about tubal ligation in dogs. Years ago I became aquainted with a breeder of Rottweilers that did a tubal ligation on ALL of her female pups she sold as pets. She did the surgery quite early, say at 8 weeks or so.

This was back in the early 80's so the memories are a bit fuzzy.

I agree with you, I no longer spay or neuter any of my own dogs unless it's an absolute MUST like a pyometra.

can I ask what PTLS stands for?

Cindy, is this it?

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=9328652&dopt=Abstract

No Judy,

I think this is it!

http://www.tubal.org/symptoms_of_pts.htm

Hm. As a disclaimer, I know nothing about this at all and all my females have been spayed. I assume this surgery would be possible on dogs but they have a different anatomy, like their uterus is Y-shaped, so I wonder if it would be a more difficult surgery and there is more chance of PTS? Are tubal pregnancies even possible in dogs?

Is the reason you don't want to spay because of the incontinence? Is there a medical reason like a bladder infection for why she could be incontinent? Has she been seen by a vet?

Just curious, not tryig to start a flame war, I am just wondering why you would want to keep a female intact when you are not planning to breed her. I went through one heat with my female I have now and it was such a pain that I can't see living with it when I didn't want puppies from her. So I was just curious why you want to keep her intact?

I found this thread interesting but maybe I didn't understand your question.

I think that you might be able to find information about possible side-effects like hormone shock and tubal pregnancies on Google. You would have to weigh the possibilities of side effects of the surgery against just keeping her intact or spaying her.

Cindy, ah jeez. Here I am crowding the thread and being of no help whatsoever . I really, really should stay away from acronyms. It was only yesterday that I figured out what NILIF meant !

 Quote: Angela Burrell

Just curious, not tryig to start a flame war, I am just wondering why you would want to keep a female intact when you are not planning to breed her. I went through one heat with my female I have now and it was such a pain that I can't see living with it when I didn't want puppies from her. So I was just curious why you want to keep her intact?

I am not David, but I won't spay or neuter any of my dogs unless it's a medical emergency (i.e. pyometra) I understand that most people aren't me and aren't fanatical about the things vets and well meaning pet owners do to their dogs. I also understand that most people probably SHOULD spay their dogs, because they aren't equipped to prevent an unwanted pregnancy. A walk though any shelter will tell you this much.

I feel that dogs have a uterus and ovaries for a reason. When women have a hysterectomy, they are usually placed on hormone therapy because their body is now lacking an essential part of their body. Why would animals be any different? I own one spayed female, my son's 8 year old Corgi. I waited until she was 2 to spay her, thinking this would make a difference and allow her proper development. She is one of the most BITCHY females I have ever owned (and the first spayed female) She's grouchy, nervous and not tolerant of other dogs at all. She was much better before the spay but year after year she gets worse.

I hate the ploy vets use about preventing cancer as a reason to spay or neuter.... maybe we should neuter men because it will eliminate their risk of testicular or prostate cancer? Maybe all women should have hysterectomies and mastectomies to prevent breast cancer, uterine and ovarian cancer?? There's a pattern with modern medicine to remove body parts as a preventative for the possibility of disease!! If you really think about it, it's absurd!

No offense to you personally Angela, but I think spaying because you don't want to deal with heat cycles is not a good reason. If I didn't want to deal with heat cycles I would have only male dogs.

Since there are so many unwanted puppies, I can't say I am against spaying for the average pet owner but I will never spay or neuter one of my own dogs just because.

 Quote: Judy Troiano

Cindy, ah jeez. Here I am crowding the thread and being of no help whatsoever . I really, really should stay away from acronyms. It was only yesterday that I figured out what NILIF meant !

No worries, Judy!

TTYL (talk to you later) haha

Disclaimer: Rambling post below...

I agree that the average pet owner should spay/neuter to prevent unwanted puppies. I work in rescue and so many wonderful dogs (and cats) are needlessly killed because owners don't prevent breedings.

I admit that I do not feel confident that i could prevent an unwanted breeding in my dogs. My female is spayed not only so I don't have to deal with the heat (and I don't just mean the mess, I mean worrying about where she is at all times and not letting her run off-lead), but so I don't have any litters. My male, who is a foster, is neutered too. This way the rescue that owns him knows he will not contribute to future shelter dogs. In addition I don't have to worry about him taking off after females in heat or fighting over a female (though he fights for other reasons like territory). Most of these scenarios, I would say the average owner is not equipped to deal with.

I am sure that you, Cindy, as a breeder and the original poster are probably equipped to deal with preventing unwanted litters much better than the average owner (and myself).

I don't know what the original poster means by "spaying/neutering doesn't affect dogs". I have only owned the one unspayed bitch (who I had spayed a few months after I got her) and I don't think her attitude changed after she was spayed, she was about 2 or 2 1/2 at the time. I expected her to act differently, maybe more aggressive or something, during the heat but she was sweet as pie. Maybe the age you have the surgery done matters.

I only bring this up because of the simple fact that veterinarians do WAY more spay surgeries than tubal ligations, meaning they would not be experienced and there may be a possiblity of them making a mistake. The article Cindy posted mentioned that many of the post-tubal-ligation problems are caused by errors in surgery like too many blood vessels being cut off so the ovary atrophies. My point is you may inadverdently interfere with the hormones by doing a tubal ligation anyway. My understanding is that the ovaries and estrogen/progesterone production is only active during the heat cycle, so any PTLS problems may not crop up until her next cycle. (This may be vet propaganda, when they state that spaying is like the dog just not going into heat since her ovaries are inactive anyway, but I'm not sure). While spaying would prevent a heat cycle, an *improperly done* tubal ligation could cause problematic heat cycles. Again, I'm not a vet, so I don't know what the sex organs do when the dog is not in estrus.

I am just kind of thinking out loud, the link Cindy posted was very informative and I'm kind of trying to apply it to this topic. Again I find this an interesting thread and I am looking forward to reading others opinons on this.

David, I hope my ramblings are relevant to your question about PTLS in dogs. Do you know what the cost is of a tubal ligation? Also is the only reason you want to do the surgery because of the incontinence? My personal feeling would be to keep her intact until you find out the cause of the incontinence.

Estrogen is produced all year round. If there is lower estrogen, there is chance of incontinence to develop causing the dog to have accidents even when there is little urine in the bladder.

My worry is Faith has a incontinence problem, spaying would make the problem worse as the procedure could possibly lower estrogen production.

tubal litegation is performed by some breeders at 8 weeks or younger like one of the above posts stated. If/when I find a breed I want to focus on, the females will all have tubes tied. Possibly makes too. I seriously don't like premature spay jobs, I'm curious if anyone have actually compared litter mates and structural bone growth, especially the knees. Testosterone and estrogen both play an important part in growth horomones, a premature job really scares the hell out of me to get a dog with a pseudo(undeveloped) penis or pseudo vagina because they just don't look right to me. I'm sure if I really took the time to look skeletal structure would look awkward to me too.

the only problems I forsee if the vets here aren't skilled at tubal ligation. There is a vet somewhere here in lower alaska who is absolutely terrible at tubal ligations. I don't know why but some vet wanted this procedure, possibly because the dog wasn't mature. The owners were not aware of types of procedures and were the general "I don't care I just want a pet" owners. The poodle ended up accidently mating with a pug... As you see I'm also afraid of the failure rate

mm, I should call the vet tomarrow and ask if they've even done a tubal ligation. I'm sure they've done the procedure before since they do see many mush teams and breeders, at least I'd hope.

tubal ligation - reversible spay job. cut/suture or cauterize
Pomeroy technique(cut/suture): http://www.tubal-reversal.net/tubal_ligation_Pomeroy.htm

vasectomy - reversible neuter job, cut/suture
hysterectomy - removal of uterus
overiohysterectomy - removal of uterus and ovaries