Sometimes they can. When you take away the hormones, their metabolism slows a little. In puppies especially, when they're growing, and we're feeding them like they're growing, and then they stop growing, and we spay or neuter them, it can make their metabolism slower, so they can gain weight. It's not guaranteed that an animal will get fat when they're spayed and neutered, but we just have to watch its calories and adjust accordingly.

We usually send it home. We give them pain medication before, during, and after the procedure, but we normally send home a couple of days of pain medication for you to give, just because it has to be a little uncomfortable and to get them through that window. It usually helps to give it throughout before they start experiencing the pain. If you catch it beforehand, you can keep them comfortable versus letting them get uncomfortable and then try to catch up.

Recovery time tends to be about a week for both. It might be a little faster for our males. Five to seven days for our males versus like seven to 10 days for our females. But either way, it's not a long turnaround time. They usually come out of it a lot easier than we do.

Yes. We will send you home with a document, and our technicians or us will go over what to expect for the next couple of days, things to be on the lookout for and answer any of your questions before sending your pet home.

It can. In our male dogs, testicular cancer tends to be one of the bigger things, as well as issues associated with the prostate, because that can be hormonally influenced. Those tend to be the bigger issues. In our females, we can see some cancers at a higher risk. Particularly the ovaries, the uterus, or breast cancer. We also see uterine infections, which can be life-threatening in our females, especially older females. So those would be the bigger things that we would run into with them being intact. If we take out the uterus, there can't be an infection, but if you take away the hormones as well, you can reduce the risk for things like breast cancer or prostate issues.

It can. Intact male dogs, especially. Their hormones can make them want to mark their territory. Sometimes getting rid of the testosterone influence can bring down that desire. But it depends on how old the dog is. It's not guaranteed to solve the problem, but it's certainly the first step if you're running into those issues. Sometimes it's learned behavior, and they don't come out of it. That's the case with a lot of behaviors of intact animals. You can't guarantee it will fix it, especially if it's an older dog, it's had time to mark all over the place, and that's the habit. But it is certainly the first place to start when there's a problem like marking with an intact dog.

A lot goes into breeding that I don't know that everyone understands. It's not just about having puppies. It's also about having healthy puppies. So making sure that the parents are healthy, they're not carrying any genetic things that they could pass on. For that reason, unless you're going to be committed to making sure that the puppies are healthy, it ends up being a lot more work and headache than it is worth. Dogs aren't like people in the sense that they want to be a mom necessarily. They don't really know what that is. So unless you're planning to breed the dog, I usually recommend not having just a litter for the sake of having a litter.

No, they do not. There are instances where we would not recommend spaying and neutering, like if you're planning to breed the animal or if there is a health concern with a risk for anesthesia. Things of that nature will make us recommend not spaying or neutering. On the whole, if you're not planning to breed the dog where there isn't necessarily a reason, at some point, it's recommended to spay and neuter because it can lower the chances of a number of health concerns.

Surgery is certainly not warranted in any, or in very many emergencies, or certainly not all of them. It depends on what the emergency is. Right off the top of my head, the first two things I think of is if you have a dog with an intestinal obstruction, and that dog is vomiting. Perhaps a young puppy ate a sock. That's the first thing that popped into my head. But if something like that happens, that might require surgery because you have to remove that physical foreign body and get it out. Otherwise, the patient will not get better. Maybe there’s a bladder issue, perhaps there are stones, or the bladder is blocked—those are instances that might require minor procedures, or maybe even a full surgery. Pregnancy issues can also lead to surgery. If you have dystocia where a pregnant female cannot deliver her pups properly, that might require surgery. But that is really about the only ones that I can think of on short notice.

I don’t perform surgery in the case of an emergency unless it's warranted because the last thing that I want to do is put an animal that's already stressed and debilitated under anesthesia. But there will be some cases where surgery is the treatment, or cure, for that set emergency. And again, what I just said is not a comprehensive list, but those are the ones that came to me off the top of my head.