There is a pet overpopulation problem in the United States and one of the solutions proposed by the AVMA and the Association of Spay/Neuter Veterinarians is Early Spay/Neuter. You will be hearing a lot about Early Spay/Neuter in the coming years, it is an idea and a technique to spay or neuter your pet as early as 6 to 8 weeks. Yes I did say weeks, not months.

About 15 years ago there was a study done at the University of Illinois (hard to imagine it has been that long) in which the results of spaying or neutering your pet at an early age was actually beneficial as it was much less stressful on the patient and the patient recovered much more rapidly with less complications. It sounds like a great thing, especially when you consider spaying or neutering at that age will avoid any chance at all of unwanted pregnancies. This would have a major impact on unwanted healthy dogs ending up in shelters with the risk of being euthanized (put to sleep). There are some estimates that 250,000 dogs and cats are euthanized every month in shelters that is 3 million every year! Many of these dogs and cats come from unwanted pregnancies, mistakes by owners that did not have their dog/cat in to the vet soon enough, not realizing that many are able to reproduce at 6 months of age. This method of spaying/neutering would put a dent in this number.

So you would think that I am all for it, because on the surface of it, it looks like a great proposal and the majority of the veterinary community is all for it. So why am I hesitant, why am I not fully on board with this program? Because I am dangerous, I ask questions!

The study done at the U of I (my alma mater, GO ILLINI!) compared spaying and neutering of dogs and cats of ages 6 to 7 weeks to 6 to 7 months. And there were better results for the surgery itself for the younger age group and there were no significant differences in skeletal dimensions, body weight, physical maturity and many other items. The only difference was that in the younger group they had smaller external genitals, which is of no significance health wise. (BTW, since that time it has been shown that there is a small increase in risk of urinary incontinence in spaying at the younger age) However it got me thinking, the external genitals are smaller because there was never any sex hormones to increase their size. So is there anything else that the sex hormones control besides reproduction? The answer is yes, it helps with the closure of growth plates among other things.

Unfortunately the study done by the U of I can not shed any light on this subject as the growth plates are not closed at 6 to 7 months of age either. Most dogs growth plates close between 9 months and 18 months of age. We would need a study of early spay/neuter vs spaying and neutering after the growth plates have closed to determine if there is any clinical difference.

My guess would be there is a difference, but would it matter that much if your dog was slightly smaller or if the growth plates did not close solidly or completely. It probably doesn’t except for one group and that happens to be the group that I am most concerned with - athletic dogs. Dogs that participate in a sporting activities such as flyball, agility, hunting, dock diving, lure coursing, racing, etc. Many long time sporting people especially hunters claim that the dog changes, its instincts are different, and the competitive nature decreases after spaying/neutering, but does it have an effect on the muscular skeletal system as well? My current feeling is if you have a sporting dog whose main purpose is to perform a sporting activity I would wait till the growth plates are closed before spaying or neutering your dog. With this waiting comes two problems one is owner responsibility. The other is the increased risk of mammary cancer in females. However with the mammary cancer there are many other risk factors that have now been worked through including nutrition and over vaccination that could also be playing a part.

The owner responsibilty is the major problem. It is the problem which is where the argument is going to come. The purpose of early spay/neuter is prevention of unwanted puppies and kittens and owner responsibility would say to early spay and neuter. If you are not spaying or neutering precautions need to be taken to be sure that your dog is not breeding. Unfortunately mistakes occur, which is where the argument is going to come from the proponents of early spay/neuter, just as in human sex education with abstinence there are no mistakes. There claim is that even with the most responsible dog owner a mistake can happen and lead to unwanted puppies, so there is no reason to wait.

However, I say, if you have a dog that is not going to be particpating at high levels of competition, then early spay/neuter may be just fine until proven otherwise. If you are going to be competing at high levels you can wait until the growth plates have closed but the risk and the responsibility is on you to be sure no mistakes occur. The research is not there yet to prove if there truly is no deleterious effects in the long term on your competitive sporting dogs health by spaying and neutering early. For more information on early spay neuter check out - Project Spay/Neuter