In Northern America, dogs are routinely spayed or neutered when they’re between 4 and 9 months old to prevent unwanted puppies. In Europe, people want to spay or neuter their dogs because they allegedly “behave better”.
You as a responsible dog owner know that both of theses reasons are myths. You know what it takes to avoid unwanted puppies, like the alpha couple in a wolf pack, that prevents other pack members from mating. Naturally you will not leave your female in heat unsupervised in the back yard, and only walk her on-leash, and in areas that are not frequented by other dogs.
In my opinion every vet who desexes a healthy dog younger than 20 months without proven reason, is simply greedy for money. Removing a dog’s ability to produce important hormones while his skeleton is still developing can result in delayed closure of the growth plates at the end of each long bone, which may put the dog at a higher risk for orthopedic disease, developing one or more joint disorders respectively.
Secondly, every event regarding health, and occurring before the age of 16 months may have a negative influence on the dog’s future behaviour.
The vets are baiting you with the “avoiding cancer” speech. But Studies of cardiac tumors in dogs showed that there was a 5 times greater risk of hemangiosarcoma, one of the three most common cancers in dogs, in spayed females than intact females and a 2.4 times greater risk in neutered dogs as compared to intact males. Spaying and neutering is associated with an increase in urinary tract cancers in dogs. In fact, chances are that you have to visit the vet even more often due to the side effects of desexing, and bring him more money.
However, if there should arise health issues in an adult dog, I suggest to help your dog by Sterilization without desexing.
This means performing a procedure that will prevent pregnancy while sparing the testicles or ovaries so each sex can continue to produce hormones essential for the dog’s health and well-being. This typically involves a vasectomy for male dogs, and for females either a tubal ligation or a hysterectomy while preserving the hormone-producing ovaries. It also eliminates the possibility of pyometra because the uterus is removed.
Please note that according to the German Animal Protection Law it is forbidden to desex dogs if there is no health issue.
For further information please consult the following links:
For the ones that torture their dogs, because they don’t want to deal with the female blood or the male drops; don’t get a dog!