Some misconceptions you may hear, especially with neutering is, "Hey, we're taking away his masculinity." That's not true at all. Male dogs don't really have that concept. As for females and males, sometimes the metabolism and their ability to gain weight easily might be slightly altered. We'll say this might have some part in it as a whole though. What it takes from you as the owner is feeding them appropriate quantities of food at home and exercise to help limit that weight gain.

Spays can take anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour and a half, depending on the size and maturity of the dog. A neuter surgery is usually a little shorter because, as I mentioned, you're not going into the abdomen—so that takes about 30 minutes to an hour.

There can be, especially with neuter surgeries. Sometimes you'll get what's called a scrotal hematoma, where blood kind of builds up in the scrotum. With spays, there are certain vessels that should be ligated or tied off. And sometimes those can come off and there may be some bleeding that way. As a whole, though, complications are pretty minimal.

So the actual process itself shouldn't if they’re anesthetized, and pain management should be regulated well during that procedure. Postoperatively, however, we'll often send home anti-inflammatories to help with the inflammation and the pain.