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Originally Posted by patriciaf0417  Hello I a new to this forum and I am so confused on whether I should spay my one year old yorkie. I am so scared and overwhelmed with all the information and have a ton of questions, which hopefully no one minds answering. I feel so sick to my stomach right now thinking about my baby going under anesthesia and reading all the horror stories. I read the anesthesia protocol but still have some questions so I can understand everything clearly.
1. After reading everything I think i read that normally vets should put an IV of propotol to make the dogs tired at first and they use gas of Isoflourane or Sevoflourane while doing the actual surgery? is that correct and is that the best? or is it gas the whole time?
2. what tests should i get before hand besides the blood work? I am scared of her heart and all her organs and want to test everything I can.
3. Should my baby have IV fluids during the whole surgery and an EKG machine?
4. Are they supposed to put a tube in her throat during surgery (I think its called intubate)? and could that cause a tracheal problem? 5. My baby has allergies and reverse sneezes would that be an issue with anesthesia? 6. If we don't do this spay do yorkies get cancer and mammory problems like people keep scaring me about?
7. My baby squirms a lot when other people (the vets) try to touch her and give her shots and Im scared she will resist them the whole time. do you think they could still perform the surgery?
As you can see I am a wreck thinking about this. I would not get this done at all if it was not for the health benefits. But in everyones opinion how good are the health benefits? I mean should I really spay her? I will be devastated if anything happened to her. But I dont want to have her get cancer either. I am so torn. Please help.  |
5) An allergic reaction is rare to anesthesia, but you need to talk with your vet about her allergies and is there a way to pre-test prior to the surgery to know for sure if she is allergic to the proposed agents.
A reverse sneeze should not be a problem for surgery.
2) Now you asked about pre testing prior to surgery; I wonder why you are concerned about her heart? Has your vet diagnosed a heart murmur, or any other irregularity with the heart and or pulse rate? If her heart rate is nice and strong and regular, with no apparent murmurs, then there is no reason I know so far that would make surgery a high risk.
For the blood work, I'd get a full blood work drawn up - ask for that.
2) If I would be an ultra ultra cautious person.... now you did get the two "ultras" I posted. I would ask for an xray of the cervical(neck) spine to have this spine evaluated prior to surgery. If there is narrowing of the spine, arthritis, discal problems, and a number of other things, that could make hyperextension of the neck problematic, then you would know this ahead of time.
I see no reason to recommend this in the case of your puppy.
No. 6 Cancer risks. Certain types of cancer such as mammary cancers do go up a bit with each heat a dog has prior to spaying. How-ever mammary cancer is easily caught, if you as a dog owner, are responsible enough to do palpatory exams each month.
More concerning (for me at least) is the risk of pyrometra. A serious infection of the uterus, that can kill a dog within 24 hours. One type is known as closed (which means there are precious little or no warning signs) the other type, there are recognizable signs; and you best hot foot it over to your vet right away. And for every heat,
an unbred female has the risk increases a fair amount.
Unfortunately for females the risk/benefit analysis for many breeds, does not provide a clear cut direction.
For many pet owners probably the best decision for female Yorkies is to spay after their first heat, or even second heat.
What you do need to factor in to your decision, is the additional responsibility you as the owner of an unspayed female take on.
You need to always be alert for the signs of heat, mark those heats on your calendar for a number of reasons, not the least of which is to know when the next one is due.
Then you need to keep your girl safe from unwanted matings, and should something "happen", be prepared to make the decisions on spaying then, or figuring out how you will whelp puppies, with no experience or support. We have way too many of those threads on here.
That does mean for approximately "6wks" to err on the safe side, you do not walk your gal outside. She only exercises with you in your fenced in back yard. You don't take her to grooming appointments. I would never trust my gal who is in heat, in a grooming salon.
You will need to help keep your girl clean, and provide sanitary panties which are changed out several times a day.
Finally I will say that spaying operations are overall for healthy pups relatively risk free.
Good luck with your decision.