Giant breed bitch spay

RE: Giant breed bitch spay

grumpyoldman — Sat, 18 Jun 2016 13:42:01 GMT

I think your as bad burned as scalded here , I leave anything bigger than a labrador until after the first or second season . The incontinence and CCL problems in Dalmatians rottweilers golden retrievers and GSD s seem to be related to obesity from neutering as much as the neuter itself . Lots of the bigger breeds, dogue de bordeaux, Mastiffs, IWH do not seem to live long enough to develop Mammary Carcinomas ,but I suspect that is because the Osteo sarcomas and DCM gets them first . Dobermans seem to need a lot of propallin syrup in later life irrespective of when or if they were spayed , and they often have a pelvic bladder that responds well to colposuspension surgeries.

So your guess is as good as mine .

RE: Giant breed bitch spay

mark packer — Thu, 16 Jun 2016 23:17:26 GMT

I use these 2 articles to write a handout to give to owners on the pros/cons of neutering - one by a behaviourist, the other by a vet.

http://www.2ndchance.info/cruciatelongtermneuter.htm - and has the following -

In summary, spaying female dogs significantly reduces the risk of mammary cancer (a common cancer), and the fewer estrus cycles experienced at least up to 30 months of age, the lower the risk will be.

http://www.doglistener.co.uk/neutering_definitive

Overall, the larger the breed, the older I'd leave them before spay / castrate. I always thought that spaying before 2 seasons was the ideal, but if they weigh more than 25kg I leave them to 18m, and giant breeds until >2years.

RE: Giant breed bitch spay

Eilidh Corr — Thu, 16 Jun 2016 23:02:40 GMT

GSD specific but very interesting results

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/vms3.34/full

RE: Giant breed bitch spay

Joyce Whitehead — Thu, 16 Jun 2016 22:28:17 GMT

This one seems to be getting a lot of Facebook dog press - I think I might be more confused now.

RE: Giant breed bitch spay

Joyce Whitehead — Thu, 16 Jun 2016 21:06:10 GMT

Niall I've just found this paper, which seems to be only Rotties, but has noted a significant increased risk in early neutered dogs. It's not fully clear how many months they recommend for spaying but I think I've also read another paper about spaying before 2.5 years causing significantly less incidence of mammary tumours. This paper is just osteosarcoma not ccl issues.

http://www.gpmcf.org/PDFs/Sarcoma%20Risk.pdf

RE: Giant breed bitch spay

Niall Taylor — Thu, 16 Jun 2016 20:34:59 GMT

[quote user="Joyce Whitehead"]I'm also of the leave till at least 18 months brigade. The research evidence for cruciate rupture and osteosarcoma in these giant breeds seems to suggest an increased incidence in early neutered dogs of both sexes I thought?[/quote]

This is a subject that interests me - do you have the references, Joyce? How does the risk of cruciate rupture and osteosarc with early neutering compare in absolute terms with the risk of mammary carcinona etc with late neutering? Any idea what the effect on life expectancy is?

Cheers,

Niall

RE: Giant breed bitch spay

Nicola Cole — Thu, 16 Jun 2016 20:11:43 GMT

Personally I wait until (12)-18 months old with giant breeds. Difficult to put a number on the risk as, as far as I'm aware, there are no big studies but I've always been led to believe waiting is better. Surgery-wise, unless the bitch is already overweight then i think a middle aged fat lab is trickier....

RE: Giant breed bitch spay

Stuart Jackson — Thu, 16 Jun 2016 15:28:33 GMT

Just take out the ovaries. Or get a laparoscopic procedure done - send her here....

RE: Giant breed bitch spay

Virginia Campbell — Thu, 16 Jun 2016 15:02:43 GMT

I like to let all dogs achieve skeletal maturity or as close to it as possible before spay or castrate, so the owner gets to see what a healthy adult body condition score looks like for their dog. All the puppy food bags say up to a year or 18mo which is ridiculous..if I have to neuter at 5 or 6 months I hammer into the owners to transition to adult food (or a couple of month's worth of junior for the large breeds) and reduce rations. Even so sod's law states that they've just opened a big expensive bag of puppy food, so they keep using that for a month and the creature ends up slightly overweight. The owner then thinks this is normal. Some of them correct the weight as instructed but a lot don't, and bust their cruciates a few years later.

RE: Giant breed bitch spay

Martin Atkinson — Thu, 16 Jun 2016 14:11:17 GMT

[quote user="Eilidh Corr"]Is surgical risk really that great? Don't make a tiny vanity incision, get scrubbed assistance to ensure proper visualisation and double ligate tightly. I think in the hands of an experienced surgeon it shouldn't be riskier than spaying a lab. I certainly wouldn't think twice about it.[/quote]It was a dinovet assertion that spaying giant breeds is more risky because of the relative size of the uterine stump that shrinkage after ligation could allow the ligatures to loosen enough to cause haemorrhage to the extent that some would not spay them. I never subscribed to this theory and double ligate with transfixion sutures. Except once I'd heard this myth the next Dane I spayed did haemorrhage - Sod's Law? In any case I'd probably now choose to perform just an ovariectomy. TBH I just want to avoid the logistics of hauling a potentially 60 kg dog around and positioning on the operating table.

RE: Giant breed bitch spay

Joyce Whitehead — Thu, 16 Jun 2016 14:05:36 GMT

I'm also of the leave till at least 18 months brigade. The research evidence for cruciate rupture and osteosarcoma in these giant breeds seems to suggest an increased incidence in early neutered dogs of both sexes I thought?

We like all our bitches to have had a season anyway, but I certainly can't bring to mind any bitch that has had a mammary tumour or pyo if spayed before 2. I've had 3 dogs this week with potentially nasty mammary tumours, but all were unspayed bitches of 7 plus years.

RE: Giant breed bitch spay

Eilidh Corr — Thu, 16 Jun 2016 12:49:49 GMT

[quote user="Martin Atkinson"]So how do you balance that against the increased surgical risk and cost and increased risk of mammary carcinoma?[/quote]

A very large study (only in GSDs though) recently gave the rate of mammary carcinoma at 4% for intact bitches and 1% for early neutered bitches. Leonbergers presumably have a shorter average lifespan, but we don't know about specific breed cancer risks. Let the owner have the info to decide for themselves.

Is surgical risk really that great? Don't make a tiny vanity incision, get scrubbed assistance to ensure proper visualisation and double ligate tightly. I think in the hands of an experienced surgeon it shouldn't be riskier than spaying a lab. I certainly wouldn't think twice about it.

RE: Giant breed bitch spay

Martin Atkinson — Thu, 16 Jun 2016 12:36:23 GMT

[quote user="nikki"]

There have been some recent studies linking early spaying in large breed dogs to osteosarcs, cruciate ligament problems and other joint probs. Our usual advice is for large breed dogs to wait until skeletally mature around 18months.

[/quote]So how do you balance that against the increased surgical risk and cost and increased risk of mammary carcinoma?

RE: Giant breed bitch spay

nikki — Thu, 16 Jun 2016 12:24:33 GMT

RE: Giant breed bitch spay

Dagmar Steele — Thu, 16 Jun 2016 10:36:08 GMT

Recent studies seem to point in the direction that small breeds are more likely to develop mammary cancer, hence an early spay is a good idea whereas giant breeds are more likely to develop osteosarcoma and incontinence if spayed (early), hence leaving them intact may be the better option. Having said that research seems to deliver quite different results on different breeds (GSD for example are three times as likely to have joint problems if neutered/spayed, cancer so far not considered a problem, whereas GR seem to be high on the list for osteosarcomas if not intact). So it's really early days regarding the research on the effect of neutering/spaying and it will be interesting what we are about to learn in the let's say next ten years to come. Personally I will keep spaying my own dogs for various reasons, one of them being the fact that I see more mammary cancer and pyos in intact bitches than osteosarcomas, many times with sad outcomes due to late presentation and/or money restraints.

RE: Giant breed bitch spay

Anthony Dennison — Thu, 16 Jun 2016 10:20:45 GMT

Personally, I leave all giant breed dogs and bitches until they are older, around 1 year old at least (sometimes 19 months), but I'm afraid I don't have any facts or figures to back up why. Generally because at 6 months they are still a puppy and have a lot of growing to do. However, IIRC Gerry Henry does a lot of 8 week old neutering for a breeder client and hasn't noted any long term problems?

RE: Giant breed bitch spay

John Wessels — Thu, 16 Jun 2016 10:20:00 GMT

before 1st season.

No different(apart from mind your back) than a yorkie. 1 stitch job.

RE: Giant breed bitch spay

Bob Russell — Thu, 16 Jun 2016 10:18:35 GMT

Is a Leonberger more likely to develop mammary carcinomas/pyo or abone tumour?

Would you prefer to be shot or stabbed?

A bit of a no win situation but I would go for protection against a pyo and mammary carcinomas if I was crazy enough to have such a breed!

Our Leonberger owners listen to this advice and then do precisely what they planned to do in the first place.

Give them the options and let them make the decision. The only thing an early spay will not do is stunt the growth!