Tag Archives: neuter

3 Amazing Reasons to Neuter Your Dog

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Oh here she goes again, another boring lecture from another animal welfare advocate about getting your dogs reproductive bits removed. Well you can stop rolling your eyes at me because not a day passes that i don’t see a whole pack of dogs with their wedding tackle dangling or in heat when I’m out and about walking the rescue dogs, so clearly some of you haven’t heard yet….

Neuter & Spay: The Basics

Neutering is a general term for the surgical removal of reproductive organs from your pet, spay refers only to the female procedure. Every veterinary surgery across the world offers neutering options and the prices do vary from around £60-£150 (male dogs) £88 – £220 (female dogs). Cats and smaller animals are much cheaper as the surgery tends to take less time and require less anaesthetic drug. Animal charities such as Cats Protection and Dogs Trust (UK) and SPCA (USA) often offer free neuter and spay months or weeks and for those in financial difficulty the PDSA in the UK offers a low cost neuter. If you think these costs are outrageous, let’s see how you feel about the costs of problems that could be found later on in the animal’s life as discussed below…

The Surgery

The surgery for your pet doesn’t actually take that long and is a routine operation with minimum risks unless your pet has underlying medical issues which may be affected by anaesthetic. A sedative is given which takes around 5-8 minutes to kick in and then your pet will be shaved in the area of the operation to avoid any hair making the surgical site dirty. A male dogs surgery will take only 20-30 minutes usually as an external removal is much simpler than the female internal organs. The female surgery usually takes around 45 minutes to an hour depending on the size of the dog. Your pet will be observed in their vet kennel as they come round from the surgery and can be picked up just an hour or so post op! A follow up will be required a few days after to check the site for infection and again in 2 weeks to remove stitches. Your dog will probably be sent home with a few days worth of pain killers and either a vet cone or body grow vest.

Ok so why am i telling you to do this?

The Good Bits

  1. Prevents any accidental puppies being brought into the world from risky rendezvous in the dog park and adding to the over population problem. 

2. Prevents multiple types of cancers developing in your dog which are becoming more and more common such as; testicular, ovarian, uterus and cervical. These cancers if left untreated can spread through the hormones, blood and lymph system to grow and could develop into other types such as lung or even bone cancer which will be fatal. 

3. Prevents negative behaviours in both male and females such as: increased energy levels and hyperactivity, possessiveness, territorial, aggressive, resource guarding, humping/sexual behaviour, lack of attention, difficulty training. 

So what are you waiting for? The main culprits of the anti-neuter brigade, and i’m not being sexist i’m being honest, are the men who feel they are being cruel to “take away their man hood” or end their favourite hobby of licking their balls… Well guys if the Big-C wasn’t enough to scare you and you still want to argue that you are a responsible dog owner who will never allow an “accidental litter” to occur, let’s put it like this;

Imagine your dog is allowed to keep his “manhood”, and you are a responsible dog owner who never allows him to mate….Your dog is running around pumped full of hormones and no way of releasing them! You cannot allow  a dog to mate with a spayed female because the female will not feel the urge to mate and therefore you will be technically raping the female dog… There is no justification for allowing your dog to remain un-neutered. Get it done.

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Many dogs who are found in the county pounds left as unclaimed strays appear to once have been well loved family dogs, and we often wonder why they haven’t been found, what happened? More often than not, after a full vetting, we find the dog is riddled with cancer and instead of the previous owner taking the difficult but responsible road of euthanising or treating the dog, it has been dumped.

18 dogs are euthanised in the pounds alone every day across the UK. Let’s end this now. To support our efforts pulling dogs from deathrow go to http://www.broken-souls-rescue.org

#AdoptdontShop #18DogsADayUK

The Dog Pound: UK

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We all remember the dog pound from Disney’s “Lady & the Tramp”, the dog catchers portrayed as evil with their catch poles crawling about in their cage van searching for dogs to catch and take back like it was their hobby. A dark and dingy place full of dogs in cold kennels looking sad, lost and alone. The little brown mutt too sad to sing who was crying always made me cry as a child. But having been in the animal industry for 13 years now, i know that the reality of UK dog pounds somewhat brighter, (thank goodness).

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Dog wardens in the UK are mostly people who actually adore dogs and want to be first on scene to respond and ensure each animal is treated with dignity and love. They don’t have time to be hunting down hiding doggies to make up their numbers; the kennels are already crammed and the calls keep coming in about stray and dumped dogs. I have also found that dog wardens are very active in the Lost & Found pet world to try and reunite any of their charges with their families outside of their work hours on their own time, and failing this,  they are extremely active in the rescue world, seeking out pound pulling organisations and rescue back ups to take the dogs in when their 7 days are up.

So what are our pounds actually like? Well think of the bottom end of the scale of boarding kennels and you’re pretty much there. UK country dog pounds are a council service or contracted purely for council dog warden intake, and therefore do not often have the biggest resources to be refurbishing their premises or improving their resources. Time is the biggest problem, the staff are usually spread thin keeping a full kennels clean and sanitary with feeding times and daily walks. Luckily, many pounds have volunteers who come in to walk dogs, spend time playing and being affectionate as well as helping to train out any behavioural issues.

Unfortunately, like everything in life, there are pounds who try to make profit from their rehoming services by selecting certain breeds of dog deemed more adoptable to extend their time in the kennels and put other breeds (like the staffy) to sleep without hesitation. Pounds can also be difficult when dealing with rescues trying to pull dogs from death row. Most pounds also won’t work with any rescue that publicly states a dog has been on death row, it says it gives the dog warden service and that particular “rehoming centre” a negative connotation. Posing as a rehoming centre and not allowing true no-kill rescues to be more honest and open about the problem is meaning their is little to no public awareness of the 18 dogs a day issue in the UK.

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So is their really a clock ticking? Yes. Once admitted into the kennel and found to have no chip or not be able to contact the owners or have the dog released to the kennel by the owners; the dog has 7 days to be claimed or bought from the pound. Once the 7 days are up, it is all down to how full the kennels are as to how much extension each dog will get. 99% of the time, the pounds are full. If no rescue steps forward to pull an un-“adopted” dog from death row, the dog will be euthanised via lethal injection. Put to sleep. Killed.

Call it a rehoming centre, a county kennel or a high kill shelter; the pound represents the stray, abandoned, dumped, unwanted dogs of the UK being turned away by large rescues due to their breed and smaller rescues are too full to help. The 18 dogs a day in the UK being killed.

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For Every Puppy Born and Bought There is a Dog Already Waiting in a Rescue, Shelter or Pound…

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If i hear one more idiot tell me that they don’t want to have their pet neutered or spayed because it will change the dog’s personality, take away their “man-hood” or they simply do not see the benefits; i may scream.

Medical benefits of having your dog neutered and spayed is the significantly reduced risk of cancer. Cervical, ovarian and testicular cancer are extremely common in dogs nowadays due to changes in diet, environment and genetics from modern breeding practices. The Staffordshire Bull Terrier is especially susceptible to testicular cancer and is often a tragic end to a dogs life from as young as 5 or 6 years old due to owners not being able to afford treatments to cnacer that quickly spread to other parts of the body. So let’s prevent.

Keeping an entire dog or bitch, particularly in a low income household, is simply a temptation waiting to become a disaster of an “accidental” litter sold on the cheap to friends, family and neighbours or online to make a quick bank deposit. A successful litter of pups can be produced and profit making within 17 weeks as long as no complications occur such as the loss of the mother’s milk. A microchip at 8 weeks, solid puppy food from 5 weeks and worming and flea treatments throughout are a minor cost compared to the potential income from selling a puppy online, and most backstreet breeders don’t even bother with these minor care points. Despite 2 new laws in 2016 stating that:

(1) all dogs must be chipped from 8 weeks old by their original owner

and (2) dogs can only be sold be rehoming organistions and licensed breeders,

…the policing and enforcement of these laws is flakey as remaining anonymous, multiple identities and a lack of public awareness means most backstreet breeders and puppy mills are never recognised by buyers, let alone reported and brought to justice.

Now your neighbour illegally selling the “accidental litter” is one thing, the puppy mills across the country using family homes as fronts to sell puppies is another large scale, huge profit making industry that is beginning to creep into the light of the public eye. However, the demand for the supply of puppies in the UK is relentless. Puppies shipped in illegally from Europe and Ireland are being bought for as little as £20 each and sold online for up to £750 and puppy mills hidden on farms deep in the countryside in the UK are selling these unhealthy, mentally frozen and emotionally damaged pups into respectable family homes across the country. Even when people do realise the dog is not in a well state, they often feel they are saving that puppy or simply want the pup more than they want to make a scene, and then forget to report the address of the backstreet breeder later.

These dogs with no social skills and often health issues, frequently end up being passed family to family through online sales or “free to good home” adverts due to behavioural issues. Eventually, they will be surrendered to a rescue or shelter, left at a boarding kennels never to be collected or dumped on the streets to be left unclaimed on doggy deathrow…

For every puppy being born and bought, there is a dog of 18 months upwards, waiting in a foster home or worse, behind a kennel door. A dog who like the puppy you are considering buying was ever so cute and now has separation anxiety, or dog aggression, or maybe is aggressive to men….

Spay and Neuter your dog. There are many reasonably priced veterinary practices, PDSA branches and annual free neutering events across the UK.

#AdoptDontShop #18DogsADayUK

To Today’s 18: Sleep Tight Little Ones, Run Free Over the Rainbow Bridge

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