Ep.44 – STOP Traditional Spay/Neuter: New Research Changes Everything

SPEAKER_01: 0:08

Dr. Randy here with my co-host, Dr. Sachi, or Soon to Be. Even though I know it’s a few years away, she’s in that category already. Appreciate it. Thank you. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00: 0:17

Happy to be here. Today we have a question from Lucy, also in Tucson, Arizona. And the question is when should I spay and neuter my dogs? When’s an appropriate time to do that?

SPEAKER_01: 0:27

So this is a really uh going to be a heartfelt answer because I’m first going to apologize to all of my pet parents that I’ve dealt with in 43 years. And why am I doing that? Um I’m not going to get teary-eyed. I don’t want you to get tear-dy-eyed. Um I’m doing it because information is coming forward right now in very, very quickly, but really, really powerful studies that have been done to show that spay and neutering is not without problems. We were always told that the spay and neutered dog lives longer.

SPEAKER_00: 0:58

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 0:58

Not the case by a number of studies that have been shown. Really? We were always told that we have to worry about mammary cancer or prostate cancer. Right. It’s actually been shown that dogs that are neutered are four times more likely to get prostate cancer than an unneutered dog.

SPEAKER_00: 1:14

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_01: 1:15

These are crazy. So my my my apology is that are we even making recommendations on complete ovariohysterectomies and complete castrations. And the research is now showing that we should be really looking at what we call gonadal sparing surgery.

SPEAKER_00: 1:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 1:30

And this is going to be hopefully taught at the vet schools. I don’t know that you’ll get this.

SPEAKER_00: 1:35

I’m getting it here. I’m getting it here.

SPEAKER_01: 1:37

We are going to really make a big move. Um, I want to thank Dr. Karen Becker and Dr. uh Peter uh Dubias, who are have started a site called hormonehealthfordogs.org. Hormonehealthfordogs.org. Guys, check it out. It’s really important. So if I am going to do a spay or neuter, because we worry about all of our humane societies on our animal shelters, they could also be doing these ovari and testicle sparing surgeries. In males, it’s called a vasectomy. In female dogs, it’s called ovarios ovariosparing, or we take the uterus out, but we leave the ovaries.

SPEAKER_00: 2:16

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 2:17

That way we do not lose the estrogen, the testosterone, the um, and have problems. But the biggest issue is that what happens when they’re not there is uh the pituitary gland, a little thing underneath your brain, size of a pea, secretes a hormone to release LH, luteinizing hormone. And this keeps on re-being released, looking for the ovary and testicle. And it’s now been shown that LH surge and constant LH bombardment to the body can cause cruciate ligament damage, can cause incontinence in our female dogs, can cause weakness and stiffness in the muscles and sarcopenia, which is muscle mass loss.

SPEAKER_00: 2:56

And I actually did have a question or a comment. I’ve also heard things about neutering dogs being related to their growth and their bone uh stability. Can you comment on that a little bit?

SPEAKER_01: 3:06

Yeah, I love to have my uh my pet owners on dogs wait at least until 14 to 16 months till the bone plates close on our pets. This will give us uh a chance not to affect the abnormal size and behavior of the bone growth. Also, uh probably a lot to do with uh again these cruciate ligaments and these back and hip problems that we’re getting. So if they can wait 14 to 16 months, that’s ideal.

SPEAKER_00: 3:31

Okay, so these uh they’re called gonad sparing treatments. Yeah. So do they still make the dog uh unable to reproduce, but they keep that hormone? Am I understanding that correctly?

SPEAKER_01: 3:41

Absolutely. Absolutely. So we’re not going to affect our pet population. The humane societies and shelters don’t have to worry about this situation because these animals are unable to breed.

SPEAKER_00: 3:50

And if you take out the uterus but leave the ovaries in our female dogs, does that surgery time go down then?

SPEAKER_01: 3:56

It’s actually a little bit longer. It’s a little bit longer. So it’s a little bit longer in the female dog. Uh vasectomy in the male dog is actually shorter.

SPEAKER_00: 4:03

That makes sense.

SPEAKER_01: 4:03

So so we can make up on both sides, but these are definitely things to consider. This also leads to now that we’re looking at HRT or home hormone replacement for our pets. And I started doing that uh in my practice. Uh, we actually give uh female dogs a little bit of testosterone because this is what they’re lacking, believe it or not. Um, we don’t really um, and we also use um estrogen in the form of estradiol, which is kind of a synthetic estrogen. In our male dogs, we actually implant a little bit of uh a pellet that actually suppresses the LH and also use testosterone on a weekly basis.

SPEAKER_00: 4:41

That is so interesting.

SPEAKER_01: 4:42

Yeah, we can talk a lot more about this, but I just want to introduce this and tell you what’s going on.

SPEAKER_00: 4:47

Would you repeat the website name one more time for all the people watching or listening at home?

SPEAKER_01: 4:51

Yep, it’s called hormonehealthfordogs.org. Perfect. Check it out. We’ll have more information coming to you from Dr. Andy PetFet. Thanks for listening, guys. And you can follow us at Dr. Andy PetFet on YouTube or Instagram, subscribe to our YouTube channel, tell your friends who have pets, this is where this information all comes from. Perfect. Because why are we getting this information?

SPEAKER_00: 5:16

Because we get Oh, we get questions. Sorry, I was not understanding where we were going on.

SPEAKER_01: 5:20

I know, that’s okay.

SPEAKER_00: 5:21

We get questions, which is why we want you guys to submit your questions. I’m understanding now, I’m catching on. Um so please on our Instagram, on our YouTube, on his website, feel free to leave any questions, comments you have that you want us to address. We’re happy to do that. We love to answer them.

SPEAKER_01: 5:37

Absolutely. Thank you for listening, guys. Talk to you soon.

SPEAKER_00: 5:39

Thank you.