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.....I can inject the anesthesia, shave and prep, do the surgery, and clip them back up for an adult female ovariectomy in 7 minutes or less, so a vasectomy is small potatoes.

This brings up an interesting question.

*Note: I'm talking about pets.*

I know that there are health reasons for avoiding early neutering, just as there are compelling reasons for doing it, if slightly later.

Here's the question: Are the reasons against early altering eliminated or modified (for males) if it's a vasectomy instead of castration?

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.... Are the reasons against early altering eliminated or modified (for males) if it's a vasectomy instead of castration?

And are the reasons FOR neutering (meaning fewer repro cancers, etc., resulting from castration) changed at all? Obviously, the accidental litters would still be eliminated, and aggression and bolting/wandering wouldn't be.

I guess in a nutshell, I'm asking if vasectomy instead of castration would mean that nothing about the dog would change except the ability to sire progeny.

For a vasectomy, all you do is make a small incision in the scrotum, pull out the spaghetti-like tube (the vas deferens, though sometimes it's still attached to the epididymis) and cauterize it (I can just hear the menfolks in the audience flinching). So no spermatazoa makes it way down into the semen. Very quick and easy surgery. Since the testes remain intact, there should be no hormonal changes in a vasectomied animal and totally intact animal. Vasectomied mice or rats are commonly used as stud males to get the female mice into a state of pseudo pregnancy after mating so that they will ovulate for collections. In fact, they still produce a hard seminal plug the same as totally intact males. So the vasectomied males will still have all the same sex drive as a regular intact male, but they will not (or should not, though there is a very small chance the vas could fuse once more, similar if you've heard of a woman "getting her tubes tied" but she became pregnant later) be able to conceive.

So yes, though I am not a vet yet, I would say that for the vast majority of pet owners who do not need aggressive, dominant, marking, humping males, neutering around 6 months give or take is just fine (though every once in a while females can come into estrus as early at 4 months!). But for those that want their dog intact to capitalize on the added sex drive or whatever but who is not overtly aggressive to the point of being detrimental to the training or to the owner or their family, the earlier vasectomy and the later castration (say around 18-24 months) would benefit.

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Since the testes remain intact, there should be no hormonal changes in a vasectomied animal and totally intact animal.

This should have read: "there should be no hormonal differences," so yes, the only difference between a vasectomied male and a totally intact male would be in the ability to sire offspring. So the vasectomied male would still be subject to getting benign prostatic hyperplasia in middle and later adulthood, anul fistulas, testicular cancer, etc. as an intact male.

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......for those that want their dog intact to capitalize on the added sex drive or whatever but who is not overtly aggressive to the point of being detrimental to the training or to the owner or their family, the earlier vasectomy and the later castration (say around 18-24 months) would benefit.

After I started realizing that 99% of my question was WAY up there on the stupid scale <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />, I did start thinking about what you're saying here: eliminating accidental litters from pet dogs w/o affecting drives, later bone cancers, and growth, and neutering later for the repro cancer benefits.

Is vasectomy something that can be done w/o general anesthesia?

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Is vasectomy something that can be done w/o general anesthesia?

Oooh, any males in the audience wish to answer that one? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" /> I think they can do it with local anesthesia in men, but I don't think most male animals are going to appreciate it. Some time, I'll also actually have to sit down and read the relatively few original studies that say that early altering is detrimental for health reasons as other studies seemed to be in contradiction to those. Studies can say a lot of things but there are many, many, many variables, so I'll just have to see. Of course, I have more than enough articles I need to read to finish up my master's thesis, so that'll have to wait for now. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Hypothetical: A dog gets vasectomied as a pup (or older, doesn't matter), ends up showing tremendous potential when mature and would be a great asset to the breed. Can the vasectomy be reversed? I understand it's possible, though I don't think extremely successful, in humans, but if it has been done in dogs I'd like to know. It'd be nice to remove repro capability while leaving hormones intact with the option of giving it back should the dog blossom into much more than was previously expected.

My wife's nephew is a vet. I asked him about the right age to neuter. He said after 6 months of age the dogs lick the incisions more and have more post operative pain.

Isn't this why vets use Elizabethan(sp)? collars and a little pain med?

Maren, this is a question along the same line as Diana's, could a tubal ligation be done on the female and be reversed at a later date?