Quote: Kelly At Leerburg

Anytime an animal is put under anesthesia, there is a chance of death. I am not willing to lose my dogs because they bleed twice a year, and get a little bitchy.

my thoughts exactly.

i would be intersted to hear from those who have been working dogs longer, but with my experience so far, in heat or not, a dog will still work, or at least, the bitches i have been around so far still work and go to training like nothing is different.

our particular trainers feel very strongly also that any male should have to work/train if a female is in heat near by,and that because *some* females can get weird about workign while in heat, they should be worked through it too.
they use it like other distractions, and encourage people to not leave their girls at home because they are in heat. We've done bitework with bitch panties on, lol. it makes for great conversation...

we have 2 intact females, both 18 months. their heats aren't messy so far, and neither has any detectible change, they act the same, eat the same, etc.

the boys notice, and apart from a SMALL amount of whining in the crate, and licking the grass outside after the females have been out to potty, they act normally. cross fingers, but no one has gone off food, gone beserk in the crate, had any kind of attitude change, etc.

we do however crate the boys in the basement, and the in heat girl upstairs when the time comes though...don't need a boy deciding he can go through a crate.

Most mushers don't spay females and I've heard of females in heat racing and running the iditarod. So they can work well in that sport anyway. I spayed my female at 2 year old. Didn't see any behavioral changes. It was too stressful to keep her away from my intact male (I don't have a separate kennel set-up or the time to exercise both separately) and I didn't have any pedigree on her, so any pups would've been possibly unwanted even if I bred her to a registered male (and I had a couple offers).
Do I regret this occasionally? Yes, indeed. She is such a nice, even tempered dog. But heat cycles twice a year would be tough due to seperation from my intact male, reduced activity, bleeding, attracting wildlife, etc. If you have a male in the house, some males change personality more than the female, crazy to mate, losing weight, and very distracted (even if they male is actually nuetered).
In general, if you are willing to deal with heat cycles and responsible enough to keep her from any males, I'd keep her intact. Otherwise, the jury seems to still be out on health benefits of either option. I'd wait as long as possible, around 2 years minimum. I've heard 6-7 months is one of the worst times to neuter due to the effects on growth.

I did not spay my female GSD until last year, she was 3yrs old, and the only reason is that her and our saint went into heat around the same time and it drove our male Lab absolutely nuts (also drove us nuts). The saint got fixed before she was about 10mo, and that's because she's more soft and willing to let Otto (the Lab) mount her. I would not have spayed either of them if it had not been for the ridiculous behavior by our Lab and not having seperate kennels runs for each dog. If I would've had seperate runs, we might not have had them spayed.

Do you have any other dogs, males in particular that aren't fixed? If you do, you'll want to get a doggie diaper for your female when she does go into heat, if you don't spay her at 6-7mo (which btw, most vets will recommend, because that's when the sex organs are capable of reproduction).

If I were you, and you can handle having a female in heat at least 2x's a yr until she's at least 18-24months old (only 3-4 times total), then wait to get her spayed. That way she'll get the hormones she needs for proper growth. I've had every vet tell me that spaying/neutering at 6-7 months is the best, and was told that with my Saint that I should think about it when she was 5 months old! I was appalled by this. I said oh, ok, I'll think about it.

Edited by Keleah Stull (04/08/2010 12:39 PM)
Edit reason: added more to post

Quoting Kelly: "Anytime an animal is put under anesthesia, there is a chance of death. I am not willing to lose my dogs because they bleed twice a year."

Quoting Niomi: "I have an intact female, 3 years old, who will not be spayed unless absolutely necessary.

She is not messy and she works just fine when she is in heat. She is a little more intense but other than that I see no differences.

I think whether or not your intact female thinks about "sex" depends on the individual dog."

These are my feelings as well. I have a 6 yr old whole female & a 3 year old intact male in my home. My female is always watched when outside,(I go out with her) even in my 6' fenced & kenneled yard. We have alot of wildlife in the woods behind my home, including cayotes,but not usually any issues with loose or stray dogs.
_________________________

Wow, thank you all for your replies and sharing your stories. This is such a difficult issue for us. Uma is our first GSD (and animal in general), so we don't know a whole lot about all the details of raising it. I can't explain but I absolutely love this bread and trying to do nothing to harm her. However, we have 2 young daughters (4 and 10) and I am not sure how spaying/not spaying will affect dogs behavior around them.
I am glad I asked as you provided me with lots of food for thought.
Thanks again,
Eugene

My dog just finished her second heat and when we first got her we decided we were not going to spay until after 2 heats.

I am now hesitating. I don't if anyone really knows how a dog feels after having thier sex organs remove, but now that I am going through menopause, I am wondering if a female dog has to go through the same thing...I am mostly concern with bone loss due to hormone loss or changes in the female.

I asked a vet if they can leave the ovaries when she is spayed and he look at me like I was crazy.

Since you have had Vet training, can you tell us if there has been any studies done on bone loss in female dogs after spaying? It was years before we all heard about bone loss in human females after menopause.

I think when making a decision on spaying, this factor should be known.

Thanks Anna

My standard schnauzer was spayed sometime between 2 and 3 years old. She had no changes in behavior, treated my kids (5 and 7 at the time) no different. She is 4 now, still very fit, still works very hard and still my baby. Nothing changed. I never thought of the bone loss, and would be interested to find out more on that.

My 11 y/o Border Collie was spayed at 6 y/o. She had a couple of pea sized (benign) mammary tumors removed at the same time. No difference in her temperament or drive after her spay. She had started getting a bit moody after her heat cycle and went through false pregnancy just before she was spayed.

Her heat cycles had never been an issue to deal with, but I'm glad I had her spayed at the time I did due to the tumors. They needed to be removed anyway so she was already under anesthetic.

 Quote: Anna Anderson

I asked a vet if they can leave the ovaries when she is spayed and he look at me like I was crazy.

Hey Anna, just passing through and saw this post. Vets can do a partial spay where they leave the ovaries in...you might want to ask a different vet about it though, if your regular vet gave you that look when you asked about it. Should I decide to spay my female (thus far I haven't, for reasons other members have stated), this is the route I would go.

Also, to date my dog has only had one heat cycle but I had no problem working her on stock while in heat.

Here is some information on partial spays (ovariectomy):
http://www.belfield.com/pdfs/Partial_Spay.pdf

Edited by Jasmine Dillon (04/09/2010 10:19 PM)
Edit reason: added

Many vets are hesitant to do partial spays because they've never been taught to do them. As my friend House says, "tell a surgeon that it's ok to take off a leg and he'll spend the night polishing his good hacksaw. It's not that they don't love their patients it's that they love themselves more. This is not an unreasonable position." A dead/ill dog ruins their day and when you're talking about hacking out body parts and leaving others part of the same system causes complications that most of them just don't want to deal with.
Often times you can find a vet willing to do them by figuring out which vet your local zoo frequents for their population control. Better zoos have an interest in preserving as much natural behavior as possible and usually do tube ties or vasectomies. All the behavior without the hoard of puppies and kittens.