Critical Spaying & Neutering Advice Every Pet Owner Needs!
Join Dr. Sugerman as he dives deep into the pros and cons of spaying and neutering in this informative podcast episode. Understand the breed-specific guidelines and health considerations that could affect your pet's life expectancy and well-being. Featuring real-life examples and studies, this episode is a must-listen for every responsible pet owner. Tune in to learn how to best care for your furry friend!
What You’ll Learn:
The best age to spay or neuter different breeds.
Health benefits and risks associated with spaying/neutering.
How timing of the procedure can impact your pet’s long-term health.
Breed-specific guidelines for spaying and neutering.
Insights into how these procedures can influence lifespan and quality of life.
Ideas Worth Sharing:
"There are so many different factors that we have to take into account, but these are all things to try to help you make the best decision for your pet." - Dr. Tyler Sugerman-McGiffin
"It's not the fact that they are spayed or neutered that makes them overweight. It is our feeding that's going to do that." - Dr. Tyler Sugerman-McGiffin
Resources From This Episode:
Guidelines for Breed-Specific Age to Spay/Neuter Chart
Research Used In This Episode
https://veterinarypartner.vin.com/default.aspx?pid=19239&id=4951480
https://veterinarypartner.vin.com/default.aspx?pid=19239&id=4951464
https://avim.us/feline-mammary-gland-adenocarcinoma/
https://veterinarypartner.vin.com/default.aspx?pid=19239&id=4951454
https://veterinarypartner.vin.com/default.aspx?pid=19239&id=4951443
https://www.aspca.org/pet-care/general-pet-care/spayneuter-your-pet
https://animalcare.lacounty.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/2018-2023-PawStats.pdf
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fvets.2020.00388/full
https://www.aaha.org/your-pet/pet-owner-education/ask-aaha/spay-or-neuter/
https://www.cdc.gov/cancer/prostate/basic_info/risk_factors.htm
https://www.animalhumanesociety.org/resource/pros-and-cons-spaying-or-neutering-your-
dog-or-cat-early-age
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28467742/
https://libguides.umn.edu/c.php?g=1315645&p=9673192
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Read The Transcript:
Dr. Sugerman: [00:00:00] Have you ever wondered if spaying or neutering your pet was the right decision? If it was the right decision, then when is the right time to do it then, right? Is there any benefit to waiting versus performing the surgery as a puppy or a kitten? I was in that exact same position when I was trying to decide what to do for my two large dogs when they were puppies as well.
Dr. Sugerman: I'm Dr. Sugerman, an emergency veterinarian and educator to pet parents. So listen in to Vetsplanation, the podcast that helps you, the pet parent, make informed decisions to help keep your pet happy, healthy, and safe. If you haven't already, you should leave us a 5 star review just at least for doing all of this research for you.
Dr. Sugerman: There was a lot of research that I had to go into to try to figure out, the best times for everybody. So let's jump into what spaying and neutering is. Reasons you should spay and neuter your pet. When to spay or neuter your pet. And maybe reasons why you may not want to spay or neuter your pet.
Dr. Sugerman: Real quick, remember that these are all my opinions along with scientific research papers that I've [00:01:00] reviewed. You have to talk to your regular veterinarian to figure out what the best time for you and your pet would be. I'm here just to give you that information, just so that it will help you make a better decision, a more informed decision.
Dr. Sugerman: So spaying and neutering are known by a lot of people by a lot of different names. You know, getting your pet fixed, castrated, altered, but what does it really mean to spay or neuter your pet? So let's first talk about the different types of spays and neuters. So the most traditional type of spay is called an ovariohysterectomy.
Dr. Sugerman: Ovario refers to the ovaries versus hysto refers to the uterine body, so the body of the uterus. An ectomy means that we remove it. So an ovario hysterectomy, otherwise known as an OHE, is where we remove the ovaries and the uterus. Another type of spay is called an ovariectomy. So this is where only the ovaries are removed.
Dr. Sugerman: [00:02:00] The uterus actually stays inside the body. This just makes it so that the body doesn't produce a lot of extra hormones like progesterone and estrogen. It does make it other places, but not enough.
Dr. Sugerman: For neuters, the most common type of neuter is called an orchiectomy. Orchie refers to the testicles, and then ectomy again means to remove something. So for an orchiectomy, it would be then to remove the testicles. In all the scenarios we just talked about, we're removing parts of the reproductive system to help stop the pet from getting pregnant or impregnating another animal. And we're removing the main source of those hormones that are needed for reproduction.
Dr. Sugerman: There are ways to have pets spayed or neutered to keep the organs, but still have those hormones that they need. So for females, it's called a hysterectomy, which you might've heard in humans, and this is where the uterus is removed and the ovaries are still [00:03:00] preserved. So they're still in the same spot. We don't touch those.
Dr. Sugerman: Those ovaries will still produce hormones then. Therefore, the pet will still have that main source of things like estrogen and progesterone, but it will not be able to get pregnant. For males, there's the vasectomy, which again, we know from another human term, right? So in human medicine, this is where the tubes are tied.
Dr. Sugerman: This is the tube that transports the sperm, and that is tied off then. This allows the testicles to continue to produce testosterone, but the pet most likely will not be able to impregnate a female. We have heard about this in human medicine too, right?
Dr. Sugerman: Like people have said they've gotten a vasectomy, there's been documented that they got one, but still somehow able to impregnate a female and that just sometimes that just happens unfortunately. So it is a risk that that could potentially happen. One important question is whether there are risks to surgery itself.
Dr. Sugerman: So no matter how healthy a pet is and no matter how skilled a veterinarian is, there's always going to be risks. This [00:04:00] is the same risks that you go through as a human in human medicine. So there's always going to be risks to anesthesia and there's always going to be risks to surgery. We've come a long, long way in veterinary medicine and in human medicine.
Dr. Sugerman: There are very few deaths that are related to anesthesia or surgical complications nowadays. Unfortunately, like I said, there is always going to be risk, but it's, it's pretty low at this point. Now that we've kind of like discussed what the process is, how to remove the reproductive parts, let's talk about why you might choose to spay or neuter your pet.
Dr. Sugerman: So there's a lot of different reasons. Most of the time people just think about Bob Barker and his just saying to spay and neuter everybody. Spay and neuter your pets, right? And I know that's dating myself a little bit here, not everybody knows Bob Barker, that was a big thing.
Dr. Sugerman: Just that was I'm going to do it because Bob Barker said we should do it. And there was lots, there was lots of research and stuff behind it, but we've come a long way in that research to try to figure out what we should do now. So let's talk about some of those [00:05:00] problems. A lot of the reasons are to prevent some health problems.
Dr. Sugerman: Things like mammary gland tumors, called mammary carcinomas, or breast cancer essentially, are masses that occur on the mammary gland tissue of females. This can be cancerous or non cancerous, something not cancerous is called benign. Pets can generally go into heat as young as like 4 months old, but on average their first heat cycle is somewhere between 5 to 6 months old.
Dr. Sugerman: After her first heat cycle, the chances of a dog developing a cancerous mammary gland tumor is about 7%. By her second heat cycle, that percentage goes up to about 25%, which is 1 in 4 chance that that mammary gland tumor will be a cancerous tumor. For cats, if they're spayed before 6 months old, the chances of a mammary mass being cancerous is only about 9%, versus if they're spayed between 6 months to a year, that chance actually increases to about 14%. [00:06:00] That's almost double.
Dr. Sugerman: Spaying after 2 years old increases that risk to a whopping 80 to 90 percent chance that if that cat does get mammary masses, that they will be cancerous. We had to go through that unfortunately with my cat. My wife had adopted her when she was older, we didn't know when she was spayed but just seeing some of the other signs, we assume she was older when she was spayed. And she did end up developing mammary gland tumors, which spread very quickly, like literally went from a tiny little bump next to her mammary gland. That we then sampled sent it out to the lab and by the time those results came back less than a week later It had already spread to multiple mammary glands and multiple lymph nodes.
Dr. Sugerman: So it is a really serious problem So therefore spaying your pet before a year old can greatly decrease those risks of cancerous mammary gland tumors Another problem that spaying prevents is something called pyometra. I've already talked about this on the [00:07:00] pyometra episode, which you should definitely check out, but here's like a brief overview of that.
Dr. Sugerman: So this is an infection of the uterus, which can be life threatening. The most common way to fix this infection, and most effective way, is going to be to remove the uterus, so to do a spay. But, it makes them very, very sick, and so that definitely makes it harder for us to do the surgery and harder on them to do the surgery. Sometimes they're possibly even too sick to do the surgery initially. We have to hospitalize them, get them feeling better before we can do that surgery.
Dr. Sugerman: Alright, let's hear it for the boys now. Neutering is very important for the prostate. So as the dog ages, the prostate becomes bigger and can become large enough to actually cause difficulties while urinating and can cause a urinary blockage, which is life threatening.
Dr. Sugerman: So keeping them intact or keeping their testicles so can increase the chances of testicular cancer. The other one where it gets too big but is not cancerous is called BPH or benign [00:08:00] prostatic hyperplasia. Meaning that it's not cancerous. Obviously, prostate is for the prostate. Hyperplasia means it becomes too big.
Dr. Sugerman: So with both benign prostatic hyperplasia and with testicular cancer, the way that we need to fix those would both be to neuter them. There are some dogs who develop bladder stones that move from the bladder into the penis or into the urethra, essentially. That's the tube that goes from the, the bladder to the penis.
Dr. Sugerman: And those urinary stones are caused because of the testosterone. So again, the only way to be able to fix that would be, one, to remove all of those stones. We do what's called a cystotomy, which I've talked before again about on the stone episode, but also to neuter them. Because if we just take out the stones, they still have the testosterone, and they're still going to continue to make those stones, unfortunately.
Dr. Sugerman: So it's the only way to fix them is to neuter them, and they usually have to be hospitalized for a couple of days with a urinary catheter in [00:09:00] afterwards. So neutering can also decrease the chances of them getting hernias. So that's where a hole is created and so the bladder can end up like outside of the abdominal cavity.
Dr. Sugerman: It decreases things called a fistula. A fistula is another hole that just connects between the colon and next to where the anus is. They're called anal fistulas. Plus, it decreases the chances of certain types of tumors of things like the testicles and the anus. It has been documented to help with some behavioral problems in cats.
Dr. Sugerman: Neutering decreases the chances of roaming and fighting and urine marking by about 90 percent over time, but about 60 percent of them will decrease that behavior pretty immediately after neutering. People also spay and neuter for convenience, obviously. You don't want to have to worry about your female pet going into heat.
Dr. Sugerman: I have a great dane, and it just seemed like it was going to be quite a big mess. People do it, and that's great, but some people [00:10:00] just can't do that. You don't have to worry about things like an unexpected litter, licensing your pet becomes much, much cheaper, and not to mention that there are some cities where you cannot have an unspayed female.
Dr. Sugerman: The reason why is that some shelters are so overrun with unwanted pets that they end up having to euthanize a lot of them. So they wanted to avoid that by having people spay and neuter their pets. Those pets deserve homes, but, they just couldn't find them, and that really sucks because they could have had amazing homes, but couldn't find, enough people to be able to foster them or enough people to be able to adopt them.
Dr. Sugerman: For example, before the pandemic, L.A. County in California had euthanized about 19,946 pets in 2018 to 2019. In that whole year, like that's a lot of pets to be euthanized. And those are not just because they're sick. They're also for behavioral problems or because they were just up for adoption for too long.
Dr. Sugerman: Then we moved to [00:11:00] 2020. We know that many people had adopted pets, because they're being quarantined at home and they could spend that time with them. So L.A. County during their last fiscal year when it ended in February of 2024, they'd only euthanized so far about 5,900 pets. In six months. So if we double that, if we assume that it gets doubled in that period of time, that'll be 10,000 versus almost 20,000. That's still a lot. That's still a lot of pets, right? The shelters are still becoming very overrun again, because there are lots of people surrendering their pets now that can no longer take care of them.
Dr. Sugerman: So keep in mind this is just L.A. County. I'm not even talking about the entire United States, right? That is just L.A. County. That is one county inside of one state. That's a lot of pets that have to be euthanized because of the pet population just being overrun.
Dr. Sugerman: So now that we've discussed, the reasons why people may want to spay or neuter their pets, let's talk about the most appropriate time to spay and neuter your pet. In the veterinary field, we used to think that we [00:12:00] needed to spay them sooner than, the sooner the better. We needed to spay them before their first heat.
Dr. Sugerman: We needed to neuter them by six to eight weeks old when their testicles dropped. But there's been a lot of research that's been performed recently that just takes into account other parts of spaying and neutering as well. There's been a lot of research that's performed specifically in things like certain cancers that are more prevalent in some breeds than others, taking into account more joint problems like hip dysplasia or their elbows not forming correctly.
Dr. Sugerman: Hip dysplasia is basically where their hips do not form well and so it causes a lot of arthritis. You can have things like ligament tears, and spaying and neutering can potentially increase urinary incontinence. So this is where pets cannot hold their bladder, and they'll start to like dribble urine, or they'll urinate in their sleep, essentially.
Dr. Sugerman: A good example of this is golden retrievers. They're so sweet, right? Love golden retrievers. But unfortunately, they [00:13:00] are prone to quite a few cancers. Goldens that were spayed and neutered by 6 months old were found to have 2 to 4 times the number of cancers that the intact. By intact, I mean they were not spayed, so they still have all of their reproductive organs.
Dr. Sugerman: But they had 2 to 4 times more cancers than the goldens who were intact. Now, with that being said, these problems mostly occur in our large and giant bred dogs. Studies have shown that spaying and neutering small bred dogs within the first year of life has not caused an increase in cancers or joint problems.
The way that it increases joint problems in our large breed dogs and not our small breed dogs is because the growth plates are closing too soon. And small breed dogs, a lot of those growth plates close pretty early versus our large breed dogs close pretty late.
Dr. Sugerman: So small breed dogs there's multiple time periods that they close, but they usually are usually closed within that first eight months. Versus our large breed dogs, some of them don't close until two years old. [00:14:00] So we're mostly going to be focusing on our large breed or giant breed, or basically dogs over 45 pounds, but not a chunky 45 pounds. Okay. This is they're supposed to be 45 pounds.
Dr. Sugerman: So another study showed that Labrador Retrievers, Golden Retrievers, and German Shepherd Dogs that were spayed or neutered under a year old were found to have, again, 2 to 4 times the number of joint problems as the intact version of their breed.
Dr. Sugerman: Considering all of these different cancers and joint problems, there is a great table that we're going to link into the description, or if you're watching this on YouTube, we'll put it on the screen here. But this table lists 36 different breeds for, and the guidelines for when researchers feel that it is best to spay or neuter your dog.
Dr. Sugerman: There are two breeds that it suggests actually leaving them intact, again, which means not spaying or neutering them. So that's the Doberman Pinscher males and the Golden Retriever females. For most of the larger breeds, it suggests that they are spayed or neutered [00:15:00] beyond 11 months old.
Dr. Sugerman: Then just make sure you read this correctly though. It will say that over 23 months and that doesn't mean not to spay them. It just means that they're recommending that they're spayed after two years old for some of them.
Dr. Sugerman: So this is the best way we can balance out these problems that occur between spaying and neutering too early and these problems of spaying and neutering too late, is we have to try to find a happy medium where we're going to hopefully allow most of those pets that do have a lot of cancers and a lot of joint problems to hopefully get through those first couple of years, but also have them spayed or neutered before they get to the point where they can have things like pyometras and mammary gland tumors.
Dr. Sugerman: So let's say you have a male golden retriever. The chart recommends that we neuter them after 11 months or essentially after a year old. So that gives you one year to save up for that neuter, right? So there's no excuses there. I know people are always like I just didn't know I was gonna have to neuter him [00:16:00] then.
Dr. Sugerman: But we have a whole year to be able to save up for that, which is really nice. It's not gonna be like when we used to do it and we're like, okay, you have eight weeks and then we're gonna be neutering them. You have a whole year to like plan for this.
Dr. Sugerman: So also depending on your lifestyle, there are places that certain intact pets cannot go, like doggy daycares. If they're intact, they're not allowed to go there. Plus, if the pet has a genetic problem, we don't want to pass on more of those genetic problems to puppies or kittens. So that's another good reason to spay and neuter. And then lastly, we have to think about things like urinary incontinence, where they're unable to hold their bladder.
Dr. Sugerman: It was found that urinary incontinence affects about 2 to 20 percent of female dogs that were spayed under four months old. But it was found, though, that spaying them between four to six months old or older did not increase those chances of urinary incontinence. Like I said, we really have to balance out a lot of these things to try to figure out when is going to be the best time for each one of our [00:17:00] pets.
Dr. Sugerman: So those are the reasons why we do want to spay. I'm going to talk real quick about small dogs. So why are small dogs not recommended to neuter? If you look at the chart, it says that it's recommended to neuter small dogs under choice on the table. Small dogs generally do not have as many joint problems as large breed dogs.
Dr. Sugerman: Like I said, the growth plates do not close at the same time. Large breed dogs typically have to be fed a very special puppy food specifically to help avoid those joint problems as they grow, because they're growing so quickly. Whereas small breed dogs, we don't really have to do that. As far as cancers go, when I think of cancers, there's always certain breeds that pop into my head.
Dr. Sugerman: Those are going to be things like hemangiosarcomas, I think golden retrievers. Osteosarcoma, I think Rottweilers. Mast cell tumors, I think pit bulls. Now, any dog can get any of these cancers, but they're just more common in certain breeds. There are just certain breeds that are more prone to that.
Dr. Sugerman: Notice though, I did not mention any of the small dogs. Small dogs [00:18:00] have a lot of other diseases that they can get for sure. But spaying and neutering we have not found to necessarily change whether that small dog is going to get that disease or not. Like heart failure is a very common thing in small breed dogs.
Dr. Sugerman: Or collapsing trachea is a really common thing in small breed dogs. But so far there's not been enough evidence to show that neutering them or spaying them later will stop that from happening.
Dr. Sugerman: One question while we're talking about this, I hear from a lot of people is, why don't I just wait to spay and neuter my dog until they're like five years old? That way they have time to grow, and it's before they've reached that geriatric age, so older age, right? There's, are those other cancers that we discussed, like mammary tumors, an increase in the risk of pyometras, which is the infection of the uterus.
Dr. Sugerman: One other thing people don't consider is cost. If you spay and neuter your small Maltese at let's say, six months old, it's actually probably cheaper than waiting until they're over a year old. It is usually a little more difficult to spay them after they're a year old, because they're more [00:19:00] mature, and they're usually larger, so they're, maybe that six months old, they were only six pounds, but now at over a year old, they're 15 pounds, which means they're going to use more drugs and they're going to use more medications and more sedation.
Dr. Sugerman: All that means that there is an increased cost. So the thought is, if it doesn't have any health benefit to waiting past six months, then six months might be a good time to go ahead and spay or neuter them. So for small breeds, it's a choice because, it's really up to you and your veterinarian to talk about it. But anytime around six months old is probably going to be okay for them.
Dr. Sugerman: So what about cats? With cats it is recommended that they are spayed or neutered around five months old. We talked about with the female cats that they are more likely to develop mammary cancer after going through their first heat cycle and even more so after a second heat cycle and 80 to 90 percent after a year.
Dr. Sugerman: Also in female cats they [00:20:00] can reproduce very quickly and become pregnant as young as four months old. Also something that people don't realize is they can have more than one litter a year. So both males and females are more likely to spray urine, they're more likely to escape, and they're more likely to fight when they're intact.
Dr. Sugerman: In female cats, there have not been any proven reasons to wait longer than five months to spay them. In male cats, there have been some studies done showing that it could be beneficial to wait until after a year old to neuter them due to potential things like hip problems or urinary issues. One thing that we really worry about is blocked cats, which I've talked before about on a previous episode.
Dr. Sugerman: But, I think maybe it could help their urethra develop better if they are over a year old after they are neutered. That being said, I've definitely seen intact male cats that have had urinary problems. And they were, you know, five, six years old at that point. It doesn't necessarily mean that it will make it to where they cannot have [00:21:00] urinary problems.
Dr. Sugerman: It just decreases the chances of that. The hard part about keeping our male cats intact, again, it's gonna be like, it's gonna be, they're gonna spray, and it does smell bad sometimes. There are cats that are great and aren't going to do that and there's other ways to be able to help them to deal with those issues of spraying.
Dr. Sugerman: And it's just making sure that you're going to be able to help deal with that because we also don't want it to be that these cats are relinquished into humane societies because they're doing things like spraying.
Dr. Sugerman: All right. With all that being said, let's play Devil's Advocate here. I'm going to go against Bob Barker. We're going to talk about why pet parents may not want to spay or neuter their pets. One reason we discussed was in male Dobermans and in female Goldens, right? So let's take a look at those male Dobermans. Looking at joint disease, there was a 2 percent chance of a male intact Doberman to have a joint disorder. And same if they were neutered males. So [00:22:00] joint problems, really not as big of a deal. For male Dobermans that were intact, the incidence of having one or more cancers was about 6%, versus males that were neutered sometime after 8 years old, that actually increased to 13%. Now it's not a huge difference, but that's still double the rate of intact males though, right? It just depends on your perspective that you take.
Dr. Sugerman: In human medicine, about 13 percent of men will get prostate cancer. Most guys look at that number as, I've got a pretty good chance that I'm not gonna get prostate cancer. Versus if I told you that you have a 13 percent chance of winning the lottery, I'd be like, I'm gonna go buy a lottery ticket right now.
Dr. Sugerman: My point is that it's not a large number, but it still needs to be taken into account and taken into perspective. So female goldens were found to have an increased risk of multiple types of cancer, so about 11 to 17 percent depending on when they were spayed. Versus our unspayed Goldens, were only about 5 percent chance of [00:23:00] them ended up having multiple cancers. When comparing these percentages, to that against the other problems that we worry about, like mammary cancers, only 1 percent of them got mammary cancers when they were unspayed, and only about 4 percent of them got pyometras when they were unspayed, no matter how old they were.
Dr. Sugerman: That's a pretty significant difference. So that's why they recommend keeping them intact or waiting as long as possible before spaying female goldens specifically. Another reason why someone might want to keep their pet intact is if they're a working animal, like for the military or for security.
Dr. Sugerman: Also if they're show animals. They actually have to be kept intact here in the U.S. I do like that reason, and I'm not a breeder, nor do I show animals. But if they are a show pet, though, then they have to have a good temperament, right? You have to have a good temperament in order for judges to be able to judge them or to evaluate them, and they have to be bred well.
Dr. Sugerman: So I feel like the goal of breeding should be that we want to [00:24:00] better the breed, right? We don't want to just have people breeding just for money and not caring about things like genetic disorders and genetic problems that are being passed on.
Dr. Sugerman: So our goal would be that we want to try to make that breed better. We don't want it to be that we're just going to be putting money towards these pets that are often going to be relinquished because of health problems. We want to make these breeds much, much better, and one way of doing that is making sure that they are properly bred.
Dr. Sugerman: Another thing is that people will often ask if they leave them intact or spaying them or neutering them will change their personality. There isn't good evidence of this either way. A pet's personality is just set by their environment and their socialization . Not necessarily if they're intact or if they're spayed.
Dr. Sugerman: If you do have a breed that is prone to ligament tears in the knee, called a CCL tear, it's like an ACL tear in people, then keeping them intact could potentially help with that, or decrease the chances of them tearing that [00:25:00] ligament, at least. What argument people have is that spaying them makes them real chonky, right?
Dr. Sugerman: Their estrogen and their testosterone do decrease, which does cause them to not need to eat as much food. So their metabolism is not as high. So their metabolism decreases, they don't need to eat as much. But really, it's not because we've spayed or neutered them that's making them overweight.
Dr. Sugerman: It's because of their metabolism decreasing. For instance, like my dane, my great dane, she is very, very lean. She is spayed and she has been spayed since she was little. It's really just about monitoring their food and making sure that they're not getting a lot of food and that they are getting proper exercise.
Dr. Sugerman: That's going to dictate whether they're going to be overweight or not. I've seen plenty of dogs who are intact that are extremely overweight as well. So it's not the fact that they are spayed or neutered that makes them overweight. It is our feeding that's going to do that.
Dr. Sugerman: Alright, let's talk about lifespan now. [00:26:00] Interestingly, there was a study that was done in Britain that showed that a spayed female dog lived significantly longer than the intact dogs. Another interesting study showed that military working dogs who were neutered lived significantly longer than intact working dogs.
Dr. Sugerman: But, another study that was done evaluating pets who had unfortunately passed away, showed that the longevity really depended on the breed and not necessarily if they were spayed or neutered. For instance, Vizslas that were spayed or neutered were more likely to have died from cancer earlier than intact Vizslas.
Dr. Sugerman: So there is evidence showing that it could potentially help the longevity of them to be able to spay or neuter them. Also, we have to take all the other factors into consideration. If we think about those goldens that were spayed or neutered, were probably going to have multiple types of cancers and died earlier than those intact Vizslas.
Dr. Sugerman: Versus another breed that maybe doesn't usually have a lot of cancers. [00:27:00] If we didn't spay them, maybe they ended up dying sooner because of mammary carcinoma or mammary tumors or mammary cancer. Then the pets who were spayed. So really again, like going back to this chart and looking at a lot of those key factors is gonna be the way to figure out when it is best to spay a new to your pet.
Dr. Sugerman: One interesting thing that I get from a lot of people is they cite Sweden as one example of why we should not spay and neuter our pets. And they only have about 10 percent of their population that's spayed and neutered, and even then it's only typically for health reasons. The thing is, though, is that 85 percent of their population are purebreds that are registered through the Kennel Club, meaning they're bred on purpose to help better the population.
Dr. Sugerman: The other really important aspect is that 80 percent of pets in Sweden have private pet insurance. That is huge. I don't know what the numbers are in the US, it was really difficult for me to, to figure it out, but if I were to go [00:28:00] off the population that I see in the clinic, I would say that maybe 10 percent of pets.
Dr. Sugerman: That's generous. Like maybe 10 percent of pets have pet insurance. I would love to see it if we got to the point where we had 80 percent of our pets on pet insurance because we know that we'd be able to take care of them well. We would be able to not have to worry about the finances so much. And it would be better for our pet population because we would be very invested in them, right?
Dr. Sugerman: I don't care as much whether they are purebred or not. Like for me, I love my mutts. But if we could get to the point of having 80 percent of pets on pet insurance, or at least to have the funds to know that we can help 80 percent of those pets, I think that that would be huge. But we're we're just not at that point.
Dr. Sugerman: So I mentioned at the beginning of the episode that I was in the same spot with my two dogs, right? At the time, I had a Great Dane puppy and a Labrador puppy. I was still doing emergency, just as I am now, but I had done a lot of research to kind of determine when the best time to spay both of them was.[00:29:00]
Dr. Sugerman: So let's look at the chart for each one of them and like figure out their recommendations. So for Great Danes, I would have assumed that they would have a much higher risk for joint problems. Because they grow really fast. They're really big and they grow really fast. I was pretty wrong though.
Dr. Sugerman: Females have about a 1 to 2 percent chance of having a joint disorder if they're intact. And that did not change if they were spayed. They still only had a 1 to 2 percent chance of having a joint disorder. Alright, so let's look at cancers. If she was left intact, the chances for getting some sort of cancer that was related to the hormones of having estrogen and progesterone was only about 3%. And if I spayed her, they'd be just about the same.
Dr. Sugerman: Looking at urinary incontinence, there was no difference between those Danes that were spayed and those intact Danes. So the recommendation according to the chart was my choice. Which was very interesting given she's a large breed, she has a large body, she is going to have her growth [00:30:00] plates close a lot later, closer to that two year mark.
Dr. Sugerman: So it was interesting for her that it says that it was our choice. It does say down at the bottom of the descriptions though, that given her large body size, and the longer amount of time for her growth plates to be closed, it was recommended to wait until after about a year old.
Dr. Sugerman: For me, I also wanted to perform a gastropexy, which is where the stomach is attached to the body wall to prevent bloat, because unfortunately that's a very common thing for Danes to get, and I did look into that. It did not matter whether they were spayed or not spayed, they still had roughly about the same chance of bloating.
Dr. Sugerman: So for that, for all of those things that to consider, I wanted to wait until she was roughly a year old. All right, let's look at my Labrador. So my Great Dane's name is Nora, by the way, and Matza is the Labrador. So for intact labs, the risk of joint disorders was about 6 percent versus females who were spayed under a year old. [00:31:00] It was about an 11 to 12 percent chance. So definitely we have to worry about joint disorders. All right, cancers, cancers for the intact female labs was about 6 percent and spaying did not increase that number. So I don't really have to worry about the cancers.
Dr. Sugerman: Urinary incontinence in spayed females was pretty low at 2 to 3 percent if they were spayed younger. So with all of those, the suggested timeline for spaying Matza, my lab, was again over about a year as well. So you might ask, when did I actually spay them? So I ended up spaying them at eight months old.
Dr. Sugerman: There's so many factors again that we had to consider. We had to consider them both going into heat at the same time. We had to consider all of these other factors of like joint problems and mammary tumors and all of these things. But also we were going to be going on a vacation and they were going to be boarded in a facility.
Dr. Sugerman: I didn't want anything to happen while they were gone, especially my dane, who I would [00:32:00] worry that she might get bloat. Therefore, they were spayed early. So far, at seven years old, neither of them have a joint problem, and neither have been diagnosed with cancer, and neither of them have urinary incontinence. I'd say we're doing pretty good so far.
Dr. Sugerman: On that, I'm going to tell you a funny story real quick. I decided it would be best to spay them both at the same time, that way we can get through the recovery about the same time. But my lab, Matza, decided to eat her sutures out, even with the cone of shame, the e collar on. And then, she decided to eat her sister's sutures out as well. What a nice sister, right? That was great, then I had to go back and redo it again.
Dr. Sugerman: All right, aren't you glad I did all of this research for you? My god, there was like so much that I had to look up. But luckily, we have a really good resource now for some really popular breeds to determine when the best time to spay or neuter them is. Another thing is if your pet is not one of those on the breed list, and it's a large dog, then [00:33:00] it might be something that you talk to your veterinarian about, or you might go looking to see what are the chances of cancer in that particular dog?
Dr. Sugerman: There are so many different factors that we have to take into account, but these are all things to try to help you make the best decision for your pet. My goal is always that, you are an advocate for your pet. You are part of your pet's decision. So you want to make sure that you have all the information that you need to be able to make the best decision for them.
Dr. Sugerman: All right. I always do an animal fact here. This was a little bit of a long episode. So I'm just going to do a really quick one about cats. So my kids love cats and there are plenty of people like our friend, the crazy cat vet, Dr. Cerna, who love cats as well. Did you know that Isaac Newton, who calculated the equation for gravity, pretty, pretty important, right?
Dr. Sugerman: But he actually gave us something that was even more useful. So he actually created the cat door. I'm guessing he was tired of his cat meowing at the door, and [00:34:00] wanted to go outside, and then two seconds later, meowing at the door, wanting to go inside, and then two seconds later, meowing at the door. I want to go outside, right?
Dr. Sugerman: I'm not a big proponent of indoor/outdoor cats, but my son complains constantly about how he let his cat into his room, and then now he has to shut the door so that our dog doesn't go in there. And now he's meowing, and he wants out again, so he goes back downstairs, and he lets the cat out, and he goes back upstairs, and then the cat's meowing again, so he has to go back downstairs, and let the cat back in his room. I just said, buddy, I'm real sorry, but welcome to your life with cats, my son.
Dr. Sugerman: I hope it was really helpful for you to understand if and when you should spay and neuter your pets.
Dr. Sugerman: I wanted to give a shout out to Kris, who is a retired vet tech that volunteers at a really high volume spay and neuter clinic called Forgotten Cats. They spay and neuter cats from like Delaware and Pennsylvania and Maryland, if I remember correctly. She had mentioned about how there have been an increased number of male cats with really severe bite wounds and dehydrated [00:35:00] and skinny and these females that are having lots of mammary tumors.
Dr. Sugerman: And requested that we do this topic so we can talk about reasons why, we should or should not spay and neuter our pets. So thank you again, Kris, for reaching out and to your team for all the hard work that you guys do. And thank you always again Shawn Hyberg for the pet podcast editing and to Kelly Dwyer for our website production.
Dr. Sugerman: We'll see you in the upcoming weeks when we talk about heartworm prevention, how to take care of your senior pets and what a veterinary ophthalmologist does. Thank you guys, we'll see you next week.