Neuter! The Only Balls Your Dog Needs Are Tennis Balls.

Neuter, Neuter, Neuter. Neuter your male dog or cat! They do not need them, and oftentimes they only cause problems. Today let’s talk about the reasons why this procedure is so important, the health benefits for your pet, the timeline of when to have the procedure done, and changes in your pet’s diet afterward.

While I love this cute meme shown above, I am definitely in the Pro-spay and neuter camp. Click on the link to read my corresponding article on why it’s so important to Spay for Female Dog or Cat. When we NEUTER a MALE dog or cat, we are removing the testicles.  First and foremost, the best reason to do this is to reduce the overpopulation of puppies and kittens with no homes in our country. Animal shelters are overcrowded in every state. This leads to the euthanasia of many healthy animals weekly, simply because there is no room for them in the shelters. Please do your part to help these animals by simply neutering your own and not adding to the overpopulation.

Next, and just as important, are the health benefits for your pet. You can’t get testicular cancer later in life if you don’t have testicles. Simple, right? I saw plenty of cases of testicular cancer in practice. While this cancer is usually quite treatable by neutering at the time of diagnosis, sometimes it will spread (metastasize) to other parts of the body. Better to just prevent it from the start.

You can also prevent future prostate issues by neutering at a young age. Prostate inflammation, prostatic hypertrophy, and prostate cancer are just a few preventable prostatic diseases.

Without all of the extra testosterone in the body produced by the testicles, the prostate will dramatically shrink in size. Just like in male humans, dogs with a swollen, infected, or cancerous prostate will strain to urinate, have blood in their urine and be in a lot of discomfort. In the x-ray to the left, the arrows are pointing to the prostate gland that is about 10x the size it should be. The light gray oval to the left of the arrows is the urinary bladder which will have a very hard time emptying due to the size of the diseased prostate gland. Prostate cancer tends to spread more quickly to other organs in the body, leading to a less-favorable outcome when treatment is attempted.

Behavioral issues in the intact male dog are VERY important to discuss. While I have seen MANY intact male dogs that are very friendly, there are also MANY that become vicious. Yes, very very very mean.

Like the 150lb intact male dog that lunged and growled at all of us in the animal hospital, tore my assistants pants, and then chased the county prosecutor down the street until she had to jump into the bed of a truck, all in the same week, MEAN. An excess of testosterone is not a good thing in the wrong body. Less important, but equally annoying, is the intact male dog that feels the need to lift his leg and urinate on everything, including walls and bags of food in the Animal Hospital. More annoying are the owners who simply don’t care. Seriously? By neutering your dog at a young age, they tend to have much nicer personalities and don’t have the urge to urinate in inappropriate places.

A quick note about male cat urine. Did you know there is a huge difference in the odor of unneutered and neutered cat urine. It's true, a cat that has not been neutered can clear out a room after urinating just once. To keep your house smelling fresh, neuter early!

Alright, now that you are on board to prevent cancer and behavioral issues in your male pets, when is the right time to have the procedure done? Many animal shelters will spay or neuter animals around 8 weeks of age so that they can be adopted. This is completely fine, but the best time is between 6-9 months of age in your standard sized dog and all sizes of cats. If you have a giant breed dog, waiting until they are 1 year old may be more preferable to allow them to grow a bit more, but you are flirting with danger regarding behavioral issues starting.

If you have a smaller breed dog, wait until 7-9 months so that their teeth can be checked at the time of the procedure. The baby teeth should all have fallen out by 6 months of age. These dogs (Shih Tzus, Bichons, Chihuahuas, Yorkies) tend to have a difficult time losing their baby canine teeth, leading to crowding, tartar build up, and dental disease much earlier in life. In practice, I will pull those stubborn baby teeth at the time of the neuter to prevent oral disease, and from these puppies needing another anesthetic procedure in the near future.  Click here to see my post on baby teeth. Neutering in the 6-9 month time frame is also very aesthetic overall.  The small amount of scrotal skin will shrink and look flat after a couple months.....none of that excess hanging scrotal skin you see in a male neutered later in life. Neuters are a very routine procedure, unless your dog has an undescended testicle. The testicles start in the abdomen, way up by the kidneys, but move down through the pelvis to the scrotum soon after birth. If one becomes stuck in the abdomen, we have to go searching for it. A testicle left in the abdomen has a significant chance of becoming cancerous later in life. Sometimes your regular Veterinarian can find this hidden testicle, but sometimes it requires a trip to the specialist to find and remove it.

Great, you neutered your pet…..THANK YOU!!! You have done a wonderful thing. How about that recovery time? This is major surgery. Your dog may have an incision that is around 1 inch long, down in the groin area, right in front of the scrotum. This incision needs time to heal properly before you allow your pet to do those hot laps outside again. 

Without this down time, excess activity can cause the now-empty scrotum to swell - A LOT. The typical healing time is 14 days. Did you know that there is really NO strength across the incision line in the first 7 days? The body is cleaning up the incision line in preparation for healing in the first week. The bulk of the strength across the incision is returned in the second week. So, give your dog a full two week break before exercising again. I love to hear that my patients were “back to normal in no time,” but cringe when the owner shows me pictures of them sliding down snow banks on their belly just two days after surgery! Cats are a bit different. We typically make a small incision over each testicle.  They can be a bit tougher to control post-operatively as they love to jump, but please do try to limit them for the first couple weeks.

Now, how do we adjust your pet’s food after the procedure? It’s okay to follow the recommendations on the pet food bag for the first couple months of your pet’s life. They are growing rapidly and need those increasing caloric amounts in their diet for this growth. But, after they are neutered, and the bulk of their growth ceases around 10 months, their metabolism drops by about 30%. If we continue to feed them the same amount, they will get heavy very quickly. Click here to read my post on why an Overweight Pet is an Expensive Pet. I try to remind all of my pet parents that after a spay or neuter procedure, they need to reduce the food by approximately 30%. The pet food bags will not tell you this!  Cats are easier. The average cat only needs 1/4 Cup of food twice daily as an adult to maintain a good weight.

Finally, a quick note about breeding (though this is a HUGE subject). If you decide against neutering your male dog in the hopes of breeding instead.......this should only be done after you have done all of the research you can possibly do about your breed of dog. You need to research common diseases for the breed, possible orthopedic problems, consider your dog's personality, whether or not they have an allergic condition, etc. Dogs should only be bred to BETTER the breed, not just because puppies are cute. Do the appropriate heart, eye, orthopedic, and thyroid testing prior to picking a mate for your dog, and make sure they have done the appropriate testing as well. If you are going to be a breeder, be a breeder of EXCELLENCE.

Okay, let’s bring in Bob Barker to sign off of this post: