thank you so much for your help laura. i really appreciate all of your help. you really made the decision an easy one and i cant thank you enough.

Your right, I just meant if it did. The AMA and I don't know what the Vet people call themselves but in a way they've taken the place of religion for most people. Rather than saying God says . . . the medical profession will give you the good word.

They try to curve a problem by giving false info so dumb people won't go have their dog bred or do it by accident, it's easier to tell them it's bad for health. So they feel it's easier, faster, and of course more profitable to do it their way. Statistically it probably works. BUT I'm in agreement with you Laura, this isn't true. I just mean even if it were. Fact is it hurts drive, etc. Unless there's a good reason or the dog has become so rank and dominant at an early age, leave it.

It's similar to second hand smoke being deadlier than first hand. The common goal is to wipe out smoking. If a guy's sucking on smoke coming from a pipe in the ground no one can convince me it's more deadly to someone who is working 10 feet away from the smoke pollution. Same scenario to me. Smoking's bad for health but they exaggerate to curve cigarette smoking.

Blake, this comes up ever couple of months. The answer's always the same. Not too much of debate on this board about it. You'll be able to see that on past posts on the board. You might want to read some of that too.

thank you very much for your advice and input. in the future ill try to check previous discussions before i start a thread; and btw i agree whole heartedly with your comments on vets brad.

Heather S.,
I too would be interested in hearing the boards opinons reagarding the effects on a bitch.
I have a 10 month old GSD with food allergies and have no intentions of breeding her.

Thanks,

 Quote:

Originally posted by Capky8:
I too would be interested in hearing the boards opinons reagarding the effects on a bitch.
I have a 10 month old GSD with food allergies and have no intentions of breeding her.

I do not know if spaying a young bitch has the same adverse impact on the development of fighting drive in protection work that neutering a young male is widely reported to have. Perhaps Ed can comment?

I have heard cautions from a number of folks that early spay/neuter can adversely affect mental and physical growth in other ways. For example, pups spay/neutered before 12 mo., especially if before 6 mo., are said to be more likely to have "permanent puppy" personalities than those left intact or spay/neutered after maturity. For bitches, I've been cautioned to allow them to go through at least one and preferrably two heats before spaying, to allow her to mature mentally.

Early spay/neuter of either male or female dogs (and other animals) affects bone development. If a dog is spay/neutered before the growth plates in the long bones close then the bones will grow longer than they otherwise would be. The risk of osteosarcoma (bone cancer) is also 2 to 4 times higher...an important consideration for breeds that are high risk for osteosarcoma... like Rotties.

The situation with female dogs is more complicated than with males though. Because with females, spaying does appear to make them live longer. The same health surveys that I quoted above that showed no longevity advantage for neutering male dogs showed this for the average longevity of female dogs:

Great Pyrenees
intact females 7.7 yr
spayed females 9.3 yr

Golden Retrievers
intact females 9.0 yr
spayed females 11.6 yr

Akitas
intact females 8.8 yr
spayed females 10.6 yr

So for these breeds, spayed females lived 1.5 to 2.5 years longer than intact females. I cannot find data like this for other breeds.

One of the key health advantages of spaying female dogs occurs with the reduction in mammary cancer lifetime risk. But this apparently only occurs if the bitch is spayed before she is 2.5 years old, and the fewer heats she goes through, the larger the risk reduction (mammary cancer is an "estrogen activated" cancer).

If I had a bitch that I did not want to breed, I would think about spaying her between 12 and 24 months. No more than 2 estrus cycles. I think this allows her to grow up mentally and physically while still gaining the longevity advantage for spaying.

Laura

 Quote:

Originally posted by Laura Sanborn:


Early spay/neuter of either male or female dogs (and other animals) affects bone development. If a dog is spay/neutered before the growth plates in the long bones close then the bones will grow longer than they otherwise would be.

Can you show me something that proves this? Sorry, but I don't think that is the case. Bone growth is regulated by growth hormones in the pituitary and while the pituitary is the "master gland" merely removing the testicles will not make your dog bigger.

I could be wrong, but I think someone else found a study proving otherwise.