The age old question of………:

When is the RIGHT time to spay a bitch….?

 

(Because everyone will tell you something different…..)  🙂  🙂

The million dollar question! I just wrote this on a forum where the lady had been given ten replies and ten different viewpoints, so is probably more confused that she started out –  So……

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OK, when you ask a general forum, you will get as many different answers as stars in the sky…. because the truth is NOONE KNOWS when the *right* time to do anything is. Not for sure. Not that covers every single bitch out there.

Passionate believers in this length of time, and THAT length of time will make convincing arguments. But frankly, I’ve known bitches of ALL ages be spayed… and not be spayed, and they each and individually have had their own problems or no problems at all! Smile

I am fully convinced that whatever age a bitch is spayed, if they were GOING to have problems they will. The chance is they would of had them at 18 months as much as at 8 months because THAT’S what was meant to happen to that bitch. I’d love to be more specific to be more reassuring but the fact is, you could do it at 6 months old, or you could do it at 6 years old and complications and problems could occur.

I certainly think pet bitches SHOULD be spayed. Purely based on having seasons to no avail. For both them, your sanity in keeping them in two months a year, and the sanity of males in your area. One more pet girl not walked in season is a GOOD thing.

I don’t believe most family girls have much chance of unwanted pregnancies. There IS a chance and yes I see and help and advise these careless souls… but its rare. Most DO know they should keep her in, or if she isn’t kept it, just get lucky.

You can drag up a report to prove any theory on anything. Late spays, early spays, inbetween spays.

For ME (and I stress this is based purely on knowing hundreds of spayed bitches over the last 20 years and their owners) rather than some report or other from one body looking at a 100 cases of something or other… I would say yes spay. And spay midway between first and second season.

Get the first season out they way for TWO reasons… one you never know when it is coming, so therefore doing it BEFORE could lead you to book in for the day she is due to come in and then she will need stitching back up and nothing doing for 3 – 4 months which has happened and would be very unfortunate.

Secondly check ‘everything is working normally’ in there in terms of a proper clear season. Not that *she* will ever USE it all, but in terms of its nice to know hormonally and so on she is cooking with gas. A first season tends to indicate some signs of maturity in the bitch too. Of course they still mature AFTER it but it is a celebration birthday that the body flags up!

Thats not to say this is the BEST time… just the EARLIEST I feel comfortable with. If you can tolerate seasons, and mess, and keeping her in, and disappointments on holidays booked and training classes paid for etc etc because she has ‘come in’… Then by all means do it later. But this is, for me the most sensible time for a combination of the above factors.

I have rarely seen a bitch spayed at this time have ill effects unless she was going to anyway… such as taking the GA badly, a little incontinence etc etc etc… but chances are she would of at 6 years old too…