01-04-2018, 12:45 PM
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#16 |
Resident Yorkie Nut Donating YT 20K Club Member
Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Texas
Posts: 27,451
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Originally Posted by pstinard My takeaway on the behavior part is that studies do show that female dogs are (at least at a statistically significant level) more aggressive than unspayed dogs. However, the author notes that the people who published those studies didn't take into account the possibility that the dogs that were spayed already had previously existing behavioral issues. Therefore, he issued caution in interpreting those results and basically said that more studies need to be done to be sure. You mention spaying for the overall health of the dog. What knocked me over (and something I alluded to in my summary if the paper) is the section on Lifespan. I'll quote from that below, because it's very very important, and rather shocking (I'll address orthopedic issues in my next post): Lifespan
Overall, gonadectomy appears to be associated with an increase in lifespan. This has great importance for veterinary medicine, whereby euthanasia is considered when quality of life is substantially compromised and cannot be expected to reasonably improve. A retrospective study that included data from the VMDB found that neutering was strongly associated with an increased lifespan (life expectancy of spayed females was increased by 26.3%, and that of castrated males was increased by 13.8%). Although gonadectomy increased the risk of death attributable to neoplasia (except for mammary gland neoplasia, which had a significantly lower prevalence) and immune-mediated disease, it decreased the risk of death attributable to other causes, including infectious disease and trauma. Similarly, analysis of patient data evaluated in a 2013 report that included data from primary care veterinary hospitals revealed that spayed dogs typically lived 23% longer and neutered dogs lived 18% longer than did sexually intact female and male dogs, respectively. That report also revealed that sexually intact dogs were more than twice as likely as gonadectomized dogs to be hit by a car or bitten by another animal. Results of a survey of owners of > 3,000 British dogs indicated that spayed females lived significantly longer than did males and sexually intact females. | WOW!! This really IS shocking! What is even more shocking to me is the fact that no one seems to have seized upon it! There is so much talked and argued about regarding altering of pups that I would think this would be a part of that discussion!
Definitely eye opening! |
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