Dogs have a greatly
improved chance of long life, good health and contentment if they are
spayed. Spaying and neutering
is the most reliable cure for numerous health and behavior problems and acts
as a powerful preventive. In
addition to conferring numerous health benefits, spaying and neutering
prevents, reduces or eliminates behaviors problematic in the home.
Spaying removes the
ovaries and uterus, and so eliminates the possibility of ovarian and uterine
infection or cancer. Bacterial
infection of the uterus (pyometra) commonly afflicts older unaltered dogs.
As pyometra advances, bacterial poisons enter the bloodstream,
causing general illness and often kidney failure.
If the uterus ruptures, the dog or cat will almost certainly die.
Pyometra requires emergency spaying, which may fail to save an animal
already severely weakened by the disease.
The best preventive is to spay dogs while they are young and healthy.
Spaying can also
prevent mammary gland tumors, the most common tumor in unaltered female
dogs. Nearly 50 percent of
mammary tumors are malignant. Once
a mammary tumor spreads to the lungs of bones, the cancer will be fatal. An unaltered dog is approximately 200 times more likely to
develop mammary tumors than a dog spayed before her first heat (by 6-8
months).
Give
your Pet a Ticket Home—Put ID on your Pet.
