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I know of a golden retriever that was a very good agility dog that was neutered at about 4 years. He was very well-endowed, and after the procedure, he nearly doubled his speed in the agility ring. So, there can be unexpected upsides to neutering, too.Quote:
Originally Posted by meljoy
I look at spaying/neutering in a simple viewpoint. It is not a natural thing to be done to dogs. We did it to control the population and for our conveniences (easier to handle, less behavior issues...) which I agree. However since it is unnatural, dogs should be close to or fully developed before it was done. I had my Bee neutered at 1 year old.
Kitty
Rod
i have wondered for a long time what the effect of the presence or absence of hormones has on the bone growth/size of the Cavalier skull. If early neutering before growth plates are closed effects the long bone growth of young Cavaliers, how would this effect the actual growth capacity of the skull to allow room for a growing brain ?
Has there been any research on this ? It really makes me wonder what are the real pros and cons are for early or later neutering in terms of healthy skull growth for a growing brain. I do know genetics play a big part here , but my question what is the importance of these hormones on the potential boney growth and size of the skull to allow more room for the brain in Cavaliers.
Thanks to all for any input or opinions.
Funny, this question is nearly the same to one posed by a breeder in the same part of the country as you, on the SM email list today. icon_nwunsure
I will post the same answer here that I posted to a similar discussion there.
if the main problem was neutering, then you would see syringomyelia across a vast range of breeds, instead, it seems to be confined to toy breeds (deliberately bred to have smaller skulls) and especially those with flatter faces (where several research projects now have indicated that breeding for a flatter face causes very strange things to happen with the internal organization of organs in the skull–with one result perhaps being the high incidence of PSOM in Cavaliers, and another possibly being a mangling of the communication between the growing skull and the growing brain, so that the skull fails to adequately accommodate the size of the brain in almost every single cavalier.Quote:
Well, the vast bulk of information from the scans done on breeder cavaliers in the UK -- where breeders say about half have come up at some point with SM in their own discussions in the past -- would all be of intact dogs. And almost all the cavaliers in the 550+ sample used for one study on incidence would have been breeder MRIs of their intact breeding dogs, mostly from the UK and Nehterlands, not pets. So you can likely assume those figures from that study all primarily apply to intact animals, not spayed animals. You could email Clare Rusbridge on this.
In addition in the UK and Europe it is far less common to spay or neuter pets so I would wager the majority of all the cases of SM reported in the UK are in intact animals.
I thought the issue of growth plates had been responded to by the researcher doing the foetal tissue research who said that all indications are that the changes take place as early as during foetel development and that the brain seems to keep growing beyond what will fit the skull well before the age at which animals would be neutered. Maybe I am recalling an email or a question at one of the SM events but it did come up. Perhaps direct a question to the researcher, Imelda McGonnell.
As syringomyelia is almost certainly–because of the points I note above– far better documented in intact dogs than in neutered dogs, I would find it very difficult to believe that neutering could have any significant role in causing this problem at the developmental stage when it occurs.
Hi
I just listened to this podcast by Dr Benjamin Hart ,thanks to Jill Scandoli for posting on the ckcs-sm yahoo group page ,he seems to think an early
spay/neuter is not appropriate ,thoughts pls.
Karlin your answer totally surprised me as I would take a risk for myself but never ever with the girls health ,so it proves again a lively debate can be
so helpful to learn .
http://www.akcchf.org/news-events/mu...nd-neuter.html
I agree with Karlin's comments in answer to your question. The ratio of theg growth of the cavalier's hind brain to the hind skull seems to be determined in the womb.Quote:
Originally Posted by godblessthem
Brian, then you must never have read any of the posts or discussion here before on this topic as many times I've posted links to these statistics! :lol: So cannot understand why you are "totally surprised"!
Ah, yes, Jill always has something to post -- and there will always be vets with a different opinion -- but it is not the general recommendation at this time *as the podcast actually highlights) and you asked for the general recommendation. The researcher actually notes that little is still understood as relates to early or late neuter, to gender or to specific breeds (if there's a small risk of a cancer in a breed then increasing risks fourfold may remain a negligible risk compared to health benefits of a spay, say.)
And of course you make some personal risk choices with your dogs :) -- you do so if you feed them raw bones, for example. There are documented risks. You have to weigh up what risks you think are important. On spays, the statistics are quite longstanding that waiting til after the first heat introduces an 8% lifetime risk of mammary tumours which eventually rises to 24%. For me, even 8% is a fairly high risk for a tumour that half the time, is malignant. For you it was clearly not as great a risk when you decided to weigh up mammary tumours against what some argue about growth plates ands other risks. That was a choice that you made on your dogs' behalf -- as we all do all the time, eve in selecting a chew.
Hi Karlin
This is Nicki's post dated 10 Jan 2010 "quote I agree with the above, Cavaliers are so prone to Pyometra which can be very dangerous; also spaying dramatically reduces the risk of mammary tumours.
If there are coat changes, they can be managed - and as Karlin says, a small price to pay. Something like the Mars Coat King or furminator are good for removing dead hair - some people opt to have their dogs clipped.
You want to aim for about half way between seasons, so if they come in 6 monthly {which is about the normal gap}, yes 3 months is correct.
Some people do advise spaying early - personally I think around 12 to 15 months is the best time, by then they are physically mature."
And Bruce H 22nd Dec 2005 "quote We try to convince our puppy people to wait til their puppy is a year old or so before S/N. But primarily because we like to see the growth plates closed. I agree 100% with what Laura said about that on the other forum. However, many times we lose to the pressure vets put on people to S/N before the first season. "
Could be why I am confuse .
Rgds
bri
As I said: the issue has been discussed many many times here. Evidence is conflicting. And as I said: I think most such discussions ignore the welfare and behaviour issues that actually cause MORE deaths than say a possible link in some breeds to higher risk of a sarcoma. A heck of a lot more dogs die because owners don't like the dog marking and send it to the pound, or their unspayed bitch had an unwanted litter so puppies are pts, or a roaming intact male strays a mile away from home and ends up dying in a pound the family never thought to look in or is run over.
I would wager many more dogs die every month in pounds in Ireland for reasons directly and indirectly related to *not* neutering than ever suffer an illness over a lifetime due to neutering.
This risk, as stated, however is completely incorrect. You have stated them as absolute risk rates (as many mistakenly do), and they are not.Quote:
Originally Posted by Karlin
The original document that these relative risk rates came from was "SCHNEIDOR, R, DORN, CR, TAYLOR, DO 1969: Factors influencing canine mammary cancer development and post surgical survival."
The exact wording is:
What that means is that IF your breed has a 10% risk rate for mammary cancer, waiting for 2 or more estrous cycles puts the girl at 26% OF THAT risk (so 2.6% risk). Some breeds have a heightened risk of mammary tumours (many spaniel breeds among those) but the vet info I have read puts the overall risk of mammary neoplasia at 3.4% - http://dogtorj.com/main-course/neute...t-gonadectomy/.Quote:
Summary . . . Among the variables, neutered bitches had 12% of the mammary cancer risk as compared to intact animals. Bitches spayed before any estrous cycles had approximately 0.5% of the mammary cancer risk; those that had only 1 estrous cycle had 8%, and animals that had 2 or more estrous cycles before neutering, 26%. Within the group having 2 or more estrous cycles before being spayed, those neutered before 2 ½ years of age exhibited a marked sparing effect on mammary cancer risk not shown for bitches neutered after 2 ½ years of age. . .
A list can be found here which shows some of the higher risk breeds (page 114) - http://www.oncoveterinaria.com.ar/co...survival...pdf - and - http://actavet.vfu.cz/pdf/200574010103.pdf
I happen to agree that people most often do not have the desire, support or time to deal with a female in heat. 24% of females will also face pyometra if left intact. Most will want to get a female spayed on those factors alone.
Oreo