A question for the vets..re hormones after spay.

Bellasophia

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I have always allowed my girls to have a couple of seasons ,or even waited a couple of years before spaying.I have always had females only in my household so no problems with keeping my girls safe.
Now,however, I have a two year old entire male ,large breed,and will be getting a small breed ,female,puppy in a few weeks time. I obviously intend to spay my girl,as my dogs are purely pets and not to be bred from.
My question is this...if I spay around seven months,before the first season,(ie early spay)I realise am going to possibly affect the dog negatively regarding her maturity ,possible encounter incontinence issues etc..so my question is...has it ever been proposed by vets,or even in research,to give the spayed female a course of female hormones through her adolescence,which would allow her to complete her growth to adulthood ? i.e.she would not be at risk of pregnancy from an intact male in the household,yet could develop correctly.
If this has never been done,why not and what are the contradictions to this ? I assume the female would be still attractive to the male as in an ovary sparing spay?I just wonder why this has never been done,especially with large breed dogs who do need their hormones but may be in similar mixed sex households.
 

Aru

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Quick answer will hopefully get a chance later to fill this out more but simple answer is that most of the health benifits of spaying come from removong the hormones.mammary cancers risk is due to hormones and is reduced by early spays as less exposure to theses hormones on each heat.uterine infections(pyometras) are also hormonally inflenced and with hormones still present you run the risk even in a spayed bitch of residual tiisues from the spay getting a pyo(stump pyometra)

There are drugs on the market to supress oestrus(heats)but they are not recommended and uncommonly used due to these risks.

Dont have any current hormone studies to hand though but thats the quick off the cuff answer...its not a good idea to give artifical hormones.
 

Clodagh

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We used to have entire dogs and bitches together and just kept them apart for the necessary time. It was a PITA (poor old dogs used to lose the ability to eat or think for a few days) but that must be better than using synthetic hormones where it isn't necessary? We don't have any dogs now but the caravans next door do and I am sure they will be over when young bitch is in season, it is possible to prevent anything happening.
 

meesha

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We had pur BC at 5 months and were advised (only after i asked) it may be good to wait till after first season - at 7 months she could be coming into season at time of op which makes it more complicated.
 

Dobermonkey

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Agree with twiggy If your large breed is 2 yrs old now he should be mature enough to castrate now? Then the bitch can be spayed when's she's ready?
 

Bellasophia

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I've no intention of using hormones on the future pup.This was a hypothetical question to the vet simply to ask whether it is actually done and if not ,why not.
It was the recent post on ovary sparing spays that made me think of hormones being used ,even though the dog was spayed,to allow the dog to reach maturity,yet still be spayed...just a thought.
I don't want to neuter my male and will probably board my girl at the vets ,or breeders,for the middle week when she is most at risk...that way we shall spay after she has had one season.
 
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