The length of the procedure depends on the doctor and their experience level, but generally, from the time of check-in to going home, it's around six hours. The actual surgery itself may only take the surgeon anywhere from 20 to 30 minutes for a spay, or 10 to 20 minutes for a neuter. However, the time it takes for us to prepare your dog for surgery and for it to recover afterwards, makes up the majority of the time.

Complications with spaying and neutering are rare, but we do see them occasionally. The most common complication is a dog licking their surgical incision. We encourage pet owners to have a plan in place if your dog starts to lick their surgical incision. We recommend using an Elizabethan collar, a Kong collar, or a surgical garment to protect the incision. Other complications include infection, swelling of the abdominal area, draining fluid out of the incision, and in rare cases, the wound can open up. For male dogs, licking the surgical site and swelling or infection of the scrotum can occur.

A spay and a neuter is a surgical procedure. We have them under general anesthesia and give them perioperative pain control because it is a surgery. If we do our jobs really well, we premedicate the dog with pain medications to help alleviate pain. We use local nerve blocks and anti-inflammatories. By the time we get them through the procedure and into recovery, they should be comfortable, and we provide post-op pain medication to keep them comfortable at home.

A dog neuter is a dog castration. We carry out the lead up to a neuter the same way as a spay - pre-medications, sedation, IV catheters, getting the dog under general anesthesia. We hook monitors up, put them on their backs, and then we surgically prep the penile testicular area. Most veterinarians make an incision just in front of the scrotum, push both of the testicles forward through that incision, and then remove them. We then close that incision up. That's a neuter.

A dog spay is an ovary hysterectomy and it's done under general anesthesia. At our hospital, we invite you to check in your dog in the morning. We might ask you to administer some calming therapy at home so the dog is not so rambunctious when it comes in. We then sedate the dog, put in an IV catheter, and get it under general anesthesia. We then prep your dog aseptically, which means we surgically prep it, and do an intra-abdominal procedure. We go into the abdomen and remove the ovaries and the uterus down to close to the cervix. That's a spay.

Possibly. Spaying in female dogs could help with marking behavior related to estrus, but it's often more behavioral. Males, especially intact ones, do a lot of marking behavior. If this behavior has persisted for a while, neutering might help, but it won't always eliminate the behavioral problem. The best way to prevent such issues is to have your pet spayed or neutered at an appropriate young age. If they're an older dog and have already developed this problem, spaying or neutering them is still recommended, but we may need to work with you to address the behavioral issue.

No, dogs can go through their lives with their reproductive tracts intact. A spay is an ovario-hysterectomy, and a neutering is a castration. If your dogs are intended for breeding, then they can remain intact. However, we strongly recommend discussing with your veterinarian before deciding to breed your dog, as we need to consider potential genetic health issues. We can prevent a lot of health-related diseases by spaying and neutering your pet. Therefore, veterinarians usually recommend spaying and neutering, especially if they're intended to be a pet. This helps ensure that you have a safe and healthy pet.

It's safe to opt out of non-core vaccines, but it's dependent on the dog's lifestyle. We want to protect your pet against the diseases it's most at risk for. For instance, if your dog isn't social with other dogs and doesn't go to the groomer or dog park, we might opt out of giving a kennel cough vaccine. However, we won't opt out of a rabies vaccine as it's a law requirement and a fatal virus if exposed.

No, there is no association between immunizations or vaccinations and cancer in dogs. However, if a dog has been diagnosed with cancer, we consider that before administering a vaccination as we may not want to overstimulate the immune system.