Quote:
Originally Posted by Peggy
I understand and respect your views. I just have a different opinion. My experince is that it hasn't changed the corgis I had neutered before 6 mos. of age. Both if them (one neutered at 4 mos and one at 5 mos.) were just as big as their brothers. No change in leg lenght or bone density.
I recommend, well actually require, that my pet puppy buyers spay/neuter at 6 mos. Depending on the person I would be willing to listen to a different point of view. But from what I've seen so far I've not seen the differences mentioned in the studies. (And I know of breeders who s/n their puppies before 12 weeks of age and before they go to their new homes. Again, not seeing an differnce in them and intact littermates.)
JMO.
Peggy
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If I were a breeder, I would likely have the same spay/neuter agreement. The interest there is still to try to ensure that pet-quality dogs don't reproduce, not because there are health benefits to s/n at a young age. For every responsible pet owner I know, I can point to 3 owners who are not so responsible. Of course of 4 potential pet owners, all 4 will tell you that they will be responsible, and as a breeder (and rescuer), you know that in actuality they may or may not be as responsible as they claim.
As far as health problems, the majority dogs will live their lives without many serious issues until more common older age problems set in (regardless of s/n age). Use bone cancer as an example (but the example could be hip displasia, or hormonal skin disease, or torn ligaments, or any problem with statisically higher risks from early (before one year) spay/neuter.) Let's say that 3% of all dogs will get bone cancer (3% is just a "number" as I couldn't find actually percentage rates of cancer across all breeds, the number in rotties is 12.7% so 3% is probably low). However, say that only 2% of dogs not spayed/neutered until one year get cancer, but 5.5% of dogs who are spayed/neutered before one year get cancer, resulting in the avg of 3% across all dogs. So even with early spay/neuter, your own dog still has a 94.5% chance of being perfectly healthy and not getting cancer. This example goes to support your point of not observing any differences in dogs which have be s/n'd at 4, 5 or 6 months.
So, while I can and do support your point about spay/neuter
in general, my support is only because of the large number of people who will let their intact dogs out to roam and add to the overpopulation problem. Better to have a statistically higher increase of health problems in specific dogs due to early neutering, than to have more and more and more unwanted animals every year.
Charlie is under my nose (constantly supervised) almost 24 hours a day. When I do leave to buy groceries or what-not for a few hours a week, he is inside in his kennel. Since the chances of him contributing to the unwanted puppy pool are virtually zero, I do have a strong preference to wait until he is a year to give him the absolute best odds of a long healthy life as possible. I know it sounds hypocritical, but the differences in my own opinion have to do with individual responsibility versus the responsibility taken by the "public-at-large".
A bit off topic: Looks like the "Animal Advisory Commission" in my city is making some headway with the City Council to pass an ordinance for
mandatory spay/neuter of every animal at 6 months of age, so there may not be a choice in the future. Breeders would have to pay a license fee per intact dog and an additional fee per litter produced.