To Neuter Or Not To Neuter, That Is The Question.

[feemandvm]

I personally would never neuter a healthy dog (and even more a male!) without strong behavioural or medical

reasons. My hounds (male and female) are both intact (8 and 11 years old)

In females, neutering before the first season reduces the risk of mammary cancer and piometra, in males there's

no significant health advantage. Neutering increases the risk of Osteosarcoma.

I found this article talking about castration...

Visit My Websitehttp://www.gsdhelpline.com/neutr.html

The osteosarcoma study is one that is commonly misrepresented on message boards. There are a LOT of problems with it.

 

1. It is a "retrospective study". This means that they pulled out charts or sent out questionaires to owners... no "new research" actually took place. The conclusions made by this type of research can often be flawed for MANY reasons.

 

Here are some examples of flawed conclusions:

 

"It is a known fact that as ice cream sales increase that crime increases" (I am being serious, it does happen). I therefore conclude that ice cream causes crime. Problem: ice cream sales increase when it is warmer outside and crime increases when it is warmer outside! Although my italicized comment is true, my conclusion is false.

 

"100% of cocaine users drank milk at some point in their lives prior to using cocaine". I therefore conclude that milk is a gateway drug that leads to drug abuse. Problem: 100% of non-cocaine users ALSO drank milk. I think there is a good chance my italicized comment is true, although my conclusion is false.

 

 

Obviously these 2 examples are silly but they are just meant to show you how someone can manipulate or misinterpret data to show anything that you want. You can read these and know they are silly, but insert medical conditions/terminology in for crime and ice cream and now it may not be so obviously silly.

 

2. We know that neutered animals are much more likely to receive higher levels of health care than intact animals on average. I can tell you from private practice that this is a fact. We've all seen pictures of dogs that are tied out back with a ripped open bag of dog food that are mistreated. Those dogs are very often intact unless the owner received the animal already neutered. Again this doesn't imply in anyway that every intact animal is treated this way but aniamls that are treated this way are often intact.

So... poor Fido that is intact, tied outside and ignored is owned by Mr. Dir T. Bag. Fido develops osteosarcoma or prostate cancer or whatever other ailment you would like to study. What are the odds that Mr. Bag will actually take Fido to the veterinarian for a definitive diagnosis? The answer is 0.000001%.

The point is that incidence of disease in intact animals in most annecdotal or restrospective research is severely underdiagnosed b/c a large percentage of the sick intact dogs never make it to the vet.

 

3. Another thought on the osteosarcoma study... it concluded that earlier castration triggered a "higher rate of osteo". Greyhounds have one of if not the highest rate of osteosarcoma of any breed. How many Greyhounds are neutered before 6 months of age like many other breeds of dog? I find it interesting that the breed with the highest risk of osteo on average gets neutered later in life than any other breed.

 

4. We do know that neutering is a risk for weight gain (I don't think this is a bad thing because one of the reasons for this is that they lose a lot of 'nervous' energy). When fed appropriately this isn't an issue. However, many neutered (and some intact) aimals are significantly overweight. We know that fat is pro-inflammatory and a risk factor for cancer. Therefore some of the studies that may show an increased risk for cancer in neutered animals may be true but may not be caused by neutering but in fact caused by being obese. Therefore having a neutered animal kept at a healthy weight would give you a healthier animal than an intact animal. Again one of the flaws with "retrospective research" is that it doesn't account for any of these "factors".

 

5. Here is a fun tidbit from the Rottie osteosarcoma paper that failed to get printed in this paper:

the "age of death" of intact and neutered male Rottweilers was the same and the "age of death" of intact females was 2 years YOUNGER than spayed females.

So this author uses the reference as an argument for keeping your animal intact when the paper clearly shows no increase in life from keeping the male dog intact and actually a VERY clear shortening of life for keeping the female intact. Funny how this fact is never actually referenced!!!

 

6. It is a known fact that the type of dog most commonly surrenedered for behavioral problems, most likely to bite, most likely to be hit by a car, etc. is an intact male dog.

 

 

The end conclusion is... NEUTER! There are really no health benefits to keeping the testicles and plenty of them to neuter (prostatic disease, perianal adenomas, testicular cancer, etc.).

 

One common error is that neutering reduces hte risk of prostate cancer. That is not true. Neutering is NOT protective against prostate cancer.

 

 

 

[Hubcitypam]

From the wording in the OP I suspect that the boy dog may be in Europe....maybe the spay/neuter requirements are different than U.S. groups? Still say neuter him ASAP. You'll be glad you did.

Edited September 17, 2007 by Hubcitypam

[Guest Annie]

I personally would never neuter a healthy dog (and even more a male!) without strong behavioural or medical

reasons. My hounds (male and female) are both intact (8 and 11 years old)

In females, neutering before the first season reduces the risk of mammary cancer and piometra, in males there's

no significant health advantage. Neutering increases the risk of Osteosarcoma.

I found this article talking about castration...

Visit My Websitehttp://www.gsdhelpline.com/neutr.html

The osteosarcoma study is one that is commonly misrepresented on message boards. There are a LOT of problems with it.

 

1. It is a "retrospective study". This means that they pulled out charts or sent out questionaires to owners... no "new research" actually took place. The conclusions made by this type of research can often be flawed for MANY reasons.

 

Here are some examples of flawed conclusions:

 

"It is a known fact that as ice cream sales increase that crime increases" (I am being serious, it does happen). I therefore conclude that ice cream causes crime. Problem: ice cream sales increase when it is warmer outside and crime increases when it is warmer outside! Although my italicized comment is true, my conclusion is false.

 

"100% of cocaine users drank milk at some point in their lives prior to using cocaine". I therefore conclude that milk is a gateway drug that leads to drug abuse. Problem: 100% of non-cocaine users ALSO drank milk. I think there is a good chance my italicized comment is true, although my conclusion is false.

 

 

Obviously these 2 examples are silly but they are just meant to show you how someone can manipulate or misinterpret data to show anything that you want. You can read these and know they are silly, but insert medical conditions/terminology in for crime and ice cream and now it may not be so obviously silly.

 

2. We know that neutered animals are much more likely to receive higher levels of health care than intact animals on average. I can tell you from private practice that this is a fact. We've all seen pictures of dogs that are tied out back with a ripped open bag of dog food that are mistreated. Those dogs are very often intact unless the owner received the animal already neutered. Again this doesn't imply in anyway that every intact animal is treated this way but aniamls that are treated this way are often intact.

So... poor Fido that is intact, tied outside and ignored is owned by Mr. Dir T. Bag. Fido develops osteosarcoma or prostate cancer or whatever other ailment you would like to study. What are the odds that Mr. Bag will actually take Fido to the veterinarian for a definitive diagnosis? The answer is 0.000001%.

The point is that incidence of disease in intact animals in most annecdotal or restrospective research is severely underdiagnosed b/c a large percentage of the sick intact dogs never make it to the vet.

 

3. Another thought on the osteosarcoma study... it concluded that earlier castration triggered a "higher rate of osteo". Greyhounds have one of if not the highest rate of osteosarcoma of any breed. How many Greyhounds are neutered before 6 months of age like many other breeds of dog? I find it interesting that the breed with the highest risk of osteo on average gets neutered later in life than any other breed.

 

4. We do know that neutering is a risk for weight gain (I don't think this is a bad thing because one of the reasons for this is that they lose a lot of 'nervous' energy). When fed appropriately this isn't an issue. However, many neutered (and some intact) aimals are significantly overweight. We know that fat is pro-inflammatory and a risk factor for cancer. Therefore some of the studies that may show an increased risk for cancer in neutered animals may be true but may not be caused by neutering but in fact caused by being obese. Therefore having a neutered animal kept at a healthy weight would give you a healthier animal than an intact animal. Again one of the flaws with "retrospective research" is that it doesn't account for any of these "factors".

 

5. Here is a fun tidbit from the Rottie osteosarcoma paper that failed to get printed in this paper:

the "age of death" of intact and neutered male Rottweilers was the same and the "age of death" of intact females was 2 years YOUNGER than spayed females.

So this author uses the reference as an argument for keeping your animal intact when the paper clearly shows no increase in life from keeping the male dog intact and actually a VERY clear shortening of life for keeping the female intact. Funny how this fact is never actually referenced!!!

 

6. It is a known fact that the type of dog most commonly surrenedered for behavioral problems, most likely to bite, most likely to be hit by a car, etc. is an intact male dog.

 

 

The end conclusion is... NEUTER! There are really no health benefits to keeping the testicles and plenty of them to neuter (prostatic disease, perianal adenomas, testicular cancer, etc.).

 

One common error is that neutering reduces hte risk of prostate cancer. That is not true. Neutering is NOT protective against prostate cancer.

 

Thank you for this very valuable post!

 

[marion]

Dr. Bill...did you read this latest article I posted?

 

Visit My Websitehttp://neutering.org/files/LongTermHealthEffectsOfSpayNeuterInDogs.pdf

 

I would appreciate your opinion as a vet about what is written in the article...do you think the info is incorrect?

[Guest GreytfullDad]

My thoughts would be that if you do not intend to breed the male and considering the advantages of neutering vs testicular or prostate cancer my immediate advice would be to nueter.

 

I am interested in a vets opinion of the study quoted from marion in spain. And will defer to his opinion on that suject without further comment.

 

Best of luck which ever way you go

[Guest SusanP]

Does your adoption group give a reason why they would give a choice about spaying or neutering? What is the philosophy behind that? It sounds very unusual to many of us here. Not only are most shelters concerned about pet overpopulation in general, but I also had the impression there are reasons to "fix" retired racers that have to do with NGA and dogs being used to start a racing kennel, no?

[dmswartzfager]

Dr. Bill...did you read this latest article I posted?

 

Visit My Websitehttp://neutering.org/files/LongTermHealthEffectsOfSpayNeuterInDogs.pdf

 

I would appreciate your opinion as a vet about what is written in the article...do you think the info is incorrect?

 

Based on my (admittedly) quick read of the two links you posted, Dr. Bill was responding to that second link. The osteo and Rottie studies that he referred to are not present in the first link, and as he points out, that second link is a retrospective study, whereas the first is not.

[Guest Snowy8]

Neuter! It is a quick snip and reduces cancer risk later in life --among other things.

Exactly!!!

[GreyTzu]

Neuter

[Guest IrskasMom]

 

 

Neuter

[maryz]

Neuter. It's a no-brainer.

[feemandvm]

Dr. Bill...did you read this latest article I posted?

 

Visit My Websitehttp://neutering.org/files/LongTermHealthEffectsOfSpayNeuterInDogs.pdf

 

I would appreciate your opinion as a vet about what is written in the article...do you think the info is incorrect?

I've read it before and this is either someone who has never read the research, doesn't understand the research or worse is deliberately misrepresenting the research. The author clearly has her own agenda as she is selectively stealing facts from various papers that fit her "cause" while ignoring the facts that don't. None of her "exhaustive research" has actually researched anything. The papers referenced were all retrospective (see my previous post on why this research is worth nothing more than prompting REAL research). Many of the papers do not actually support keeping an animal intact as the author misrepresents them as doing so. For example (I'll use the osteosarcoma paper b/c that is the one I most commonly see abused):

 

The author of this paper states that you should keep an animal intact b/c they run a higher risk of osteosarcoma when they are neutered. What the author fails to tell you was the final conclusion of hte paper was that the intact male dogs did not live any longer than neutered male dogs and that the intact female dogs actually died 2 years earlier than spayed females.

 

In many of hte other articles referenced by the author some of the higher "risk" was not found to be statistically significantly and thus was within a range that could be random chance (if you flip a coin 4 times you won't always get 2 heads and 2 tails). This fact is also not mentioned by the author.

 

When a dog does eventually develop a problem such as testicular cancer, pyometra, prostatitis, etc. In order to resolve this problem, guess what one of the treatments is.... NEUTER! However, instead of neutering a healthy young animal, we are now neutering an older less healthy animal that has cancer or a nasty infection, etc. A neuter is w/o question harder on an older animal than a younger animal. So in the end you've still neutered your pet... you've just put them through a harder neuter. Or in the case of a prostate or uterine infection, they've gone through the neuter but now have to try to deal with an infection b/c they weren't already neutered.

 

 

When you have to misrepresent research to try to argue for a cause... that pretty much tells me that there isn't a real argument for it. Again, I don't even raise any of the "too many puppies" argument which is another issue or hte fact that no internal medicine specialists or cancer specialists actually support or believe the data that was presented in the review article. Anyone who works with statistics and research knows that you can make them say anything and this is a good example of that fact.

 

 

 

 

 

I guess I should add that we just rescued a 9 year old female that had been used for breeding. I spayed her on Monday and removed 2 mammary tumors. Both were benign but the larger of the two had some "pre-malignant" changes. The "joys of motherhood" in the doggy world means the joys of mammary cancer for a good percentage of them. Had we rescued an intact male I would have pursued a neuter just the same as a spay.

[Guest KyGrey]

Empty his change purse for sure!!

[JerseyGirlInOz]

Don't neuter him, as long as you're sure he'll use a condom if he ever gets out after smelling that lady dog in season two houses down.

 

That's irony, btw. Count me in the pro-neutering, anti-extra puppies class, regardless of alleged health benefits either way.

 

 

...and ditto!

[JenniferS]

ALL the adoption groups in our area for ALL BREEDS OF DOG and CAT REQUIRE neutering.

a no-brainer with the number of animals euthanized each year.

 

 

AMEN

Thank you! I can't see any reason to not neuter or spay any dog as long as we have over-population.

[MarcR]

Never heard it put quite that way before ... but I'll join the chorus. Neuter.

Edited September 18, 2007 by MarcR

[silverfish]

I just want to say that it seems very likely to me that the original poster is in the UK, or Europe somewhere.

 

If we adopt from the RGT (the official adoption arm of the National Greyhound Racing Club) it is required that the dogs are neutered. Not sure whether that's because of preventing someone starting a race kennel of their own, though - I have no information on that. But you will either get a dog which is already neutered, or you undertake to bring them in to have it done within a reasonable time frame.

 

However, if you adopt from one of the many 'generic' animal shelters, which very often have several greyhounds, it may or may not be required. Wood Green Animal Shelters - one of our biggest and oldest - does require it. I'm pretty sure that the Dogs Trust do too, and yes, the RSPCA do. But there are many, many smaller independent rescues which simply don't have the cash to neuter and which don't enforce the rule.

 

Our problem is that there are a LOT of greyhounds here, both from the NGRC and Traveller bred. The former will be tattooed, but good luck with finding the original owner or having them take the dog if you do. The latter probably deliberately abandoned the dog in the first place - or like the NGRC owner - sold, or gave him/her away.

 

Just a little background, because it seemed to me that some of the posts here could be interpreted by the OP as rather critical, and they were doing the right thing and asking for opinions.

[Batmom]

I delayed neutering Joseph for a month or two because we thought he might have a bleeding problem. Once we confirmed that he just had a random bruising episode and did not have a bleeding problem -- confirmed by both lab tests and a knick test -- we went ahead with the neuter. As so many have stated, I really preferred to neuter a healthy robust young dog rather than an older debilitated dog.

 

I grew up surrounded by breeders of purebred show dogs. Most of them neuter their housepets as soon as their showing and breeding days are over.

[RobinM]

NEUTER.

[Guest wilsontrixie]

"When a dog does eventually develop a problem such as testicular cancer, pyometra, prostatitis, etc. In order to resolve this problem, guess what one of the treatments is.... NEUTER! However, instead of neutering a healthy young animal, we are now neutering an older less healthy animal that has cancer or a nasty infection, etc. A neuter is w/o question harder on an older animal than a younger animal. So in the end you've still neutered your pet... you've just put them through a harder neuter. Or in the case of a prostate or uterine infection, they've gone through the neuter but now have to try to deal with an infection b/c they weren't already neutered. "

 

perfectly well said...

 

NEUTER

[Guest Ilse]

Sorry but my english is not good enough to have a discussion of medical facts.

 

I just send you my private position . And I think everybody of us just want the best for our dogs. And everybody must decide for her/himself.

 

 

I have dogs since 47 years and never before their was a reasen to neuter (without a med. problem), but we never had puppies.(Dogs are always living with us in the house, no kennel etc., just a few days of attention and regard)

 

The most retired Greyhound coming to us from Ireland are neutered, so Lilifee.The reasen is they don`t want that someone will breed with this retired dogs.

But if the dogs are coming not neutered and come in good adoption it is not the rule that their will be neutered.

 

For me the only reasen to neuter is when the dog has a medical problem . And so also is our animal-safe-ordinance (Tierschutzgesetz) in Germany.

 

 

 

 

[feemandvm]

This really isn't an argument for neutering... just something that has always bothered me about owning an intact male not used for breeding.

 

We know that animals undergo "puberty" and have hormonal influences that cause them to want to reproduce. We also know that males can "smell" a female in heat for long distances. So.... isn't owning an intact male and not permitting him to reproduce kind of like telling your son that he is not in anyway for the rest of his life allowed to act on any sexual urges? Just to make the situation similar the son would have to also be able to know if there was a female that was "in heat" anywhere within a 2 mile radius.

 

I can generally tell if a male dog is intact before I ever do an actual exam based on their "attitude" in the room. Sometimes I'm wrong but I very rarely miss an intact animal. One of the things I've noticed is that most males seem to be more stressed (this is also one of the reasons they seem to have a lower risk of obesity, more nervous energy). Knowing that they are having all of these sexual urges but are either unable to act on them or are punished when they do without understanding why, is it any wonder that they are more stressed?

 

 

Again, this isn't so much an argument for neutering as I try to keep it to the medical facts... this is something that just on surface value seemed to bother me about keeping a male intact.

 

 

[turbotaina]

I had never looked at it that way (I've always been pro-neutering based on health/population control), but that's really some food for thought!

[Guest Baloos_Mom]

Definitely NEUTER...there is no good reason not to and plenty of good reasons to do it.

[GeorgeofNE]

My family has had English Setters FOREVER, used for both hunt and show. My father REFUSES to neuter the males, but has zero issues with spaying the females!

 

When I got my old dog, a pit bull mix, and had him neutered as young as Angell Memorial would do it, he was absolutely blown away that my dog was not a wimp. Dad is in his 70s, and grew up in a time and place where it just wasn't something you did.

 

Obviously they feel differently about this, and many other things, in other countries, but add my vote for NEUTER! No reason not to.