First I'll say that I never had any intentions of having a litter, and at this point still don't plan to. Personally I think breeding requires a lot of research and planning and should just be taken more seriously in general. My boy has been neutered and we plan to have the girl spayed.
Well on Memorial Day weekend we had a big get together and my uncle asked if we were going to have puppies. I simply said "no, we're getting her fixed" and he went on this big speech about dogs needing to reproduce at least once in their life or they will get cancer. I was a little upset by everything he said because it was a little condescending (along the lines of "you're going to kill your dog with cancer unless you let her have puppies") and the fact that I don't consider him a good source for this sort of information. If you ask me, I'd say he is a "backyard breeder" because he keeps letting his little chihuahua get pregnant so he can sell the itty bitty puppies for a nice price. I doubt he knows anything about the dam & sires lineage, pregnancy & birthing health, or even if they are good enough breeding stock to have so many puppies. He also has the old school idea that it's cruel to not let dogs "have sex" at least once in their life. (He had his pit bull trained to growl on cue if you told him "we're going to snip your -----" and thought it was the funniest trick ever...)
Sooo, let me get off my soapbox here and to the point.
Is this really true? If we spay Nahla without having pups, will her life be cut short because of it? And does that mean I've condemned Raja to die of cancer because he's already neutered?