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What is desexing?
Desexing is a surgical procedure involving partial or full removal of your pet’s reproductive organs so that it is no longer capable of producing progeny. Male and female desexing are also known as neutering and spaying respectively.
Why should your pet be desexed?
Desexing prevents unwanted pregnancies. As a consequence, it also helps to reduce the number of homeless dogs and cats.
Hormonal behaviour in your pet such as aggression, fighting, tendency to roam and seasonal bleeding in female dogs during mating seasons can be minimized or eliminated.
It either reduces or totally eliminates the risk of reproductive organs’ diseases such as testicular tumours, prostrate diseases, cystic ovaries, uterine infections, mammary cancer and pregnancy complications.
An additional advantage is Local councils usually charge lower rates to register desexed pets.
When can your dog or cat be desexed?
Ideally your pets should be desexed before they attain puberty, which is when they can start having progenies. For many cats and dogs this age is around 4-6 months. Desexing at a young age offers benefits in terms of often shorter surgery and quicker recovery afterwards. Nevertheless, it is never too late and desexing can be performed on older dogs and cats.
How is desexing performed?
If your pet is a male, desexing involves the removal of both its testicles. Female desexing is a more complicated surgery which involves removal of the major organs of the reproductive tract including the ovaries and uterus. Prior to the surgery a full health checkup is performed to assess the overall health of your pet. Since the procedure requires your pet be anaesthetized with a general anesthesia, pre-anesthetic blood test is conducted to examine the condition of the vital organs such as the kidneys and liver.
Are there any complications involved in desexing?
Possible surgical and post-surgical complications involved with desexing may involve pain, inflammation, wound hemorrhage, anesthetic death and post-operative kidney failure. In order to minimize such complication, it is therefore important that desexing must be performed by an experienced vet under hygienic conditions. Qualified vet nurses or technicians must monitor anesthesia during surgery and the recovery process.
Some myths associated with desexing
- Desexing makes pet fat: desexing is not directly related to making your pets fat. Overfeeding and lack of exercise are!
- A female dog should not be desexed before they have a litter: this is not true either. In fact, the risk of mammary cancer in a female dog can be reduced to almost zero if she is spayed before her first heat.
- Desexing a trained guard dog will result in a lower ability to guard: guarding in dogs is an instinctive territorial behaviour and is not affected by desexing.
DESEXING DOGS AND CATS