Niraya wrote:

Actually - females receive hormones that are only released during their heat cycle (males get hormones also) Spaying reduces the chances of mammary tumors and means no risk of pyometra and zero chance of an accidental breeding. Spay/neuter also affects the timing for the closing of the growth plates (which is affected by the hormones that are only released during heat cycles/and at a certain time in growth for males)

Males are proven to have higher instances of cancers because of neutering as opposed to keeping them intact.

Do you have any of the studies for males?? I totally agree with you and I'm not trying to nitpick! I can just never find the studies to back up what I tell people about neutering

I neutered my male at 8 months because I had to...per my contract with the breeder. I should have asked to keep him in tact, but he is doing fine, however, 8 months and 4-6 are very different. He was almost his full height and had filled out well.


In the future, I'm looking into vasectomy over neuter should I ever have to neuter a male.

Females I support spay, but I personally wouldn't do before first heat because of growth issues and a lot of the research I am reading into is that'll can lead to many issues in the future without hormones. If you monitor the mammary glands, you should be fine. My female was Spayed around 18 months.

This subject his constantly evolving for me. New information comes out all the time and changes my thinking. Spay/neuter is not black and white.

Sorry for typos...iPad has a mind of its own

Thanks Niraya. I never heard of that, can you give me some articles on it?

I alway kind of looked at it as a responsiblilty thing. Like, if I didn't neuter my male because he won't get pregnant, but my neighbor has a female they don't spay because they jsut don't want to pay for it(really common around here) and either mine somehow escapes and gets her or she comes over here, and she winds up pregnant, I would feel responsible for those unwanted puppies. Which is something I don't want to happen. I would feel just as irresponsible as the neighbor that didn't spay the female.

If you (general) feels that you cannot adequately contain your animal than *I* feel that a person in that situation should in fact spay/neuter. My personal opinion on the matter is for the average joe blow owner to spay/neuter at their vets advice.

The only resource I can provide at the moment is the one I linked on early vs older spay/neuter vs intact that I provided already in this thread. That talks some about the hormones the dogs receive.

The only other one I have I can't get to because I think it's on my other computer (I'm using my backup one right now). I"ll try and get it/find it when I get my other computer back.

Alright, thanks again, I really appreciate it.