Is it safe to have a 5 month old female in heat spayed?

Question

My Basset pup is 21 weeks old and has just come into heat. Is there any complications in having her spayed?

Answer 1

Not quite sure why this was posted in the reptiles section.....

Spaying a dog in heat can be done, but it's not a good idea to do that if you have the option of waiting. It would be safest for your dog at this point to allow her to finish her heat cycle and allow her uterus, ovaries, and hormones to return to normal before surgery on her reproductive tract. It would, of course, have been BEST to have done it before she came into heat....to drastically reduce her odds of getting breast cancer later in life....but you've already lost that opportunity. Getting her spayed now and waiting until she's out of heat....either way, her odds now will be the same.

But if spayed *during* a heat cycle, she's at higher risk of several complications. Doing so would make no more sense than doing an elective hysterectomy on a woman while she's in the middle of her period. It will also cost you more....probably a good bit more than $10, I might add. When in heat, there are a whole lot more blood vessels that have to be tied off individually....which requires more time and more suture material. An extra pack of suture material costs more than $10 itself. The extra time and messiness (due to increased bleeding) adds even more to the cost. Depending on where you live, it might be an additional $40 or more.

The heat cycle of a dog lasts a good 3 weeks (even though she'll only bleed for the first 9-12 days.) It's best to wait another week or two after that, to allow things to 'settle down' before surgery. Don't put it off longer than that, because whenever people do that is when it just keeps getting pushed further and further back (due to our lives getting in the way, etc.)...and next thing you know, she'll be in heat again, and you'll be facing the exact same dilemma again. Each time she's allowed to come into heat during her 1st 2 years significantly increases her chances of getting breast cancer later in life more and more. If not spayed by then, you can pretty much bet that she WILL get breast cancer (usually malignant/aggressive/terminal) when she's older....if she doesn't die by then of pyometra or the other common problems we see in unspayed females. Spaying past the age of 2 or 3 does not reduce her odds of breast cancer later, but DOES eliminate the possibility many of the other problems related to hormones and the reproductive tract. So....the sooner the better, if you want to be a *responsible* owner and protect your dog's health from known (and WELL-documented by respected medical experts, not just the opinions of poorly-educated lay people who want to believe otherwise) dangers. :-)

Don't allow her to get pregnant. That means STANDING there with her on a leash each and every time she goes outside until her entire cycle is over. A fence or pen is not anywhere near adequate to prevent pregnancies....we see that happen all the time. A lot of work? Yes...that's why we have normally already spayed them by this age. An above poster gave hopelessly outdated information about the proper age for spaying. We've known for 30 years now that there are VAST benefits to the dog to spay between 3-5 months of age, before the first heat cycle occurs. That's what knowlegeable DVMs recommend. Anyone who tells you it's best to wait until a dog is a year old is giving out information that was long ago proven to be false. Overall, spayed/neutered dogs DO INDEED live MUCH longer lives, with significantly fewer medical problems. If anyone doesn't believe that, hang out at your veterinarian's office for just a couple of weeks....and you'll see evidence of that every single day.

Answer 2

stalkers_love_me, there is nothing irresponsible about not spaying/neutering your dog. Spaying/neutering is the politically correct thing to do these days. Only one of my dogs has been altered, but he came from the SPCA and was adopted 4 times before we got him. My other 3, all females aren't altered and aren't going to be unless there is a medical emergency requiring to do so.

These dogs when in heat are watched over when outside, we have an 8 foot fence going around the yard. The only way they are getting out or something getting in is if it goes under the fence and with us there, it's not going to happen.

There are vets not questioning the whole must spay and neuter your pet at any age these days. You definitely do not want to do it at to young an age. If done to early, the dog can grow up with orthopedic problems. Altered animals really do not live any longer and in some cases live a shorter life span then their unaltered counterparts.

Here are a few links to go over:

http://www.showdogsupersite.com/kenlclub/breedvet/castrationindogs.html

http://www.infopet.co.uk/pages/5031.html (scroll way down, it's the longevity in dogs article)

http://www.mmilani.com/commentary-200509.html and
http://www.mmilani.com/commentary-200511.html (this is the follow up to the article above this one)

I'm not telling you not to spay your dog, but i want people to make informed decisions. When you only get one side of the story, you aren't getting all the information.

As for the OP question, there are vets that indeed spay while a dog is in heat and there are those that don't. best thing to do would be call your vet and ask.

stalkers_love_me, actually no, I expect local communities to enforce their leash laws and if your local community doesn't have one, then get one put on the books. An enforced leash law will lower the amount of dogs and cats in shelters.

Also, just how many dogs and cats do you think are puppies? What we have in shelters isn't an overpopulation issue, but an owner retention issue. The overwhelming majority of dogs and cats in shelters and pounds are not puppies, but rather dogs that were turned in for whatever reason.

Did you know that in the northeast there are shelters importing dogs in from the southern states and other countries? Want to know why? Because they don't have many dogs in their shelters. If there was such a overpopulation problem, wouldn't the shelters be overflowing all over the country?

As for the 4-6 million pets euthanized every year, this does not account for the animals that are owner requested euthanasia's, and those dogs and cats that aren't adoptable for whatever reason. So 4-6 million pets is not the actual number of pets destroyed because of so called "overpopulation".

I have lived in 3 states now in the 32 years I have been alive, I have yet to honestly see all these dogs running around that people like you claim to be around. Most of those 32 years were spent living in an urban environment, where you would expect to see strays all over the place.

I'm guessing that you didn't even bother to read my links. If you had, you would learned something. I guess your just to close minded to want to learn something.

Answer 3

Call your vet or your breeder and ask. This is the safest way to know. : )

oh, and congrats to you on being a responsible owner! : )

nanook, it sure *is* irresponsible not to spay your pets! lol. I guess you prefer to have all kinds of dogs wandering the streets and being killed in shelters. Aside from reducing the risk of some cancers and the issues involved when a dog goes into heat. Seriously, buy a clue, please! This has nothing to do with being PC. It has to do with all the people who irresponsibly breed their pets and let them run around unfixed and pregnant. It's about killing millions of animals in shelters. You don't think that unwanted puppies are the result of unspayed dogs? What, you think that aliens just drop them off here on earth? lol. Just because you can handle an unspayed dog doesn't mean that 99% of the rest of the population can or even wants to, or should. Offering your ambiguous studies and ridiculous opinions to random people on the internet simply validates their desire to have unspayed dogs running around and getting pregnant all the time. Keep it in your pants.

Answer 4

Most reputable veterinarians will not spay a dog until it is at least one year old.

There are complications.

My vet told me to just wait it out for a year and then, we could get the surgery. It's too dangerous to do it before, as the dog isn't fully developed.

It would be like a kindergartener getting a hysterectomy.

Answer 5

Most Vets are doing it routinely at 4 months...
It is fine to do if they are in heat...but for some reason the Vet charges more. Check with them first. They should be able to tell you everything over the phone.

Answer 6

The vet will not spay her if she is in heat...
At least they wouldn't spay Lady, our Cocker Spaniel...

Answer 7

there shouldn't be i heard they are spaying and neutering as young as 6 weeks now.

Answer 8

non that i know of, but they usually charge a little extra when they are already in heat! i think it is 10.00!:)