As long as your pet is healthy, there is no age limit for spaying your dog. While the traditional age for spaying is six to nine months, dogs as young as five months can undergo the procedure. Even if there are some risks with senior dogs, the benefits still outweigh a few risks.
An age of six to nine months of age may be appropriate for neutering or spaying a toy breed puppy or small breed puppy but a larger or giant breed may need to wait until they are near or over 12-18 months of age.
Is it Too Late? The recommended time to spay or neuter a dog is six to nine months. But if your dog is healthy, there is no specific age limit to having the procedure done.
Since dogs can get cancer at any age, even senior dogs can benefit from a spaying procedure. As long as a dog doesn't have any health issues that would make it dangerous to use anesthesia or undergo a surgical procedure, no dog is too old to be spayed, says Chewy.
Can you spay or neuter an older dog? While these procedures are commonly performed early in a dog's life, spaying or neutering an older dog is a common practice, too. Though spaying or neutering an older dog has side effects, sometimes it's used to treat or prevent illness.
A University of Georgia study, based on the medical records of more than 70,000 animal patients, found that the life expectancy of neutered male dogs was 13.8% longer and that of spayed female dogs was 26.3% longer.
Will my dog live longer? On average dogs who are spayed or neutered live one and a half years longer than those who are not. Typically, dogs who are not fixed live to be about 8 years of age, where fixed dogs average about nine and a half years.
Aggression. Animal specialists say that if you do not neuter your male pets, their testosterone levels will keep rising. When this happens, aggression usually takes over and this can be dangerous. Intact male pets will start fights with other male pets.
Behavioral Changes in a Dog After Being Neutered
Removing the testicles removes the largest source of testosterone in the body. This results in a decrease in sexually driven behaviors in your dog: urine marking, escaping to seek female dogs, and aggression toward other male dogs.
Female dogs can get much more life threatening conditions if they are not spayed. They can get an uterine infection, called pyometra, that requires emergency surgery. If this condition is untreated or surgery is not done as soon as possible, the infection gets into the bloodstream and becomes fatal.
In the hands of a competent veterinarian, however, most senior dogs (generally, dogs are considered senior at approximately seven years of age) can be safely spayed or neutered. Age alone, without an overall assessment of the senior dog's health, should not be used to rule out the surgery.
Can Spaying or Neutering Make a Dog Less Hyper? The short answer is that no, your dog isn't likely to be less hyperactive after getting spayed or neutered. It won't change their personality much, if at all. Each dog has its own positive and negative social habits.
Hormones contribute to a dog's natural instincts, like aggression, dominance, and marking their territory. Not only can neutering your dog help to reduce or even eliminate these behaviors, it makes your dog easier to train and manage and could reduce your dog's feelings of frustration as well.
Hormonal Changes
Testosterone is directly associated with certain forms of aggression. Once removed, the overall chemical makeup changes which can lead to altered habits and behaviors. Since testosterone affects only certain forms of behaviors, its removal does not result in a non-aggressive dog.
When to Neuter. The traditional age for neutering is six to nine months. However, puppies as young as eight weeks can be neutered as long as there aren't other health problems. An adult dog can be neutered at any time but there is a larger risk of complications.
"In general, a pet should be neutered as soon as he starts demonstrating naughty behaviors like being aggressive or dominant, marking territory, or trying to escape to find a mate," Nichols says.
Health. Recent research suggests that neutering can potentially increase the risk of some health problems in dogs while it reduces the risk of others, and that earlier neutering (under 12 months of age) may be associated with an increased risk of some health problems compared with later neutering.
The findings suggest that gender has no effect on the cause of death and a small effect on longevity — males live slightly longer. The majority of differences in canine longevity seem to be due to the effects of spaying and neutering.
No. Your pet will actually benefit from spaying or neutering, because he or she will lead a healthier and longer life. Pets become fat and lazy as a result of overeating and a lack of exercise, not from spaying or neutering.
Generally, spaying or neutering your pet will not change its personality. If there are any effects on behaviour, they tend to be positive (reducing unwanted behaviour). Spaying or neutering will not change your pet's affection level or playfulness. For females, there is typically no change at all.
Life without Hormones
Since spaying is done when pets are quite young, they will experience a lifetime of essentially being in menopause. Some veterinarians are starting to question this practice and are looking at the long term health consequences of a lifetime without sex hormones.
Where you live, the type of veterinary clinic and procedure you choose, and your dog's size and breed can all affect the cost of neutering. That said, the average cost to neuter your dog typically runs between $50 – $500. Pre-existing health conditions and the age of your pet may make the procedure more costly.
Your pet needs to be kept in an indoor crate/ kennel for most of the day and night for the next 10 days. The time of highest risk for the sutures breaking down is 3-5 days after surgery.
There are some old wives' tales that a dog should go through at least 1 heat cycle before she's spayed. This just isn't the case. Studies have shown that the risks of mammary cancer and urinary incontinence are higher if you wait to spay your dog after she's gone through 1 or more heat cycles.
Hormonal Changes
Hormones play a large role in your dog's emotional state, and when surgical procedures disrupt your pet's hormone levels, depression often follows. Dogs who've been spayed or neutered are the most likely to suffer hormonally triggered depression, thanks to the removal of their reproductive organs.