Adventures Outdoors'
IN WISCONSIN
Neutering Spaying and the Heat
By Rick Spoerl
Female dogs go into heat twice a year. I’d like to tell you its every six months, but the reality is that lots of them are quite different. Some female dogs start their first heat at six months and other’s don’t until a year old or more. Usually after their first heat the next time is six to eight months after and so on throughout the dog’s life.
The beginning or pre heat starts with the swelling of the vaginal area. Then you will begin to see drops of blood. Some dogs bleed very little and others bleed more. She will not accept the male for breeding yet and sometimes won’t until nearly two weeks into her estrus. The progesterone levels vary from dog to dog and you should consider your dog being in heat for 21 days after the first sign of blood. 7 days coming into heat, 7 days in heat and 7 days coming out of heat. Though the middle seven days is usually the time she can become pregnant Mother Nature doesn’t always agree. The only sure way to tell if the dog can become pregnant is to have a blood test done at a vet with a lab and check the progesterone level in the dog.
The heat can come at awkward times, like the day before opening day of duck hunting or a week before a hunt test or field trial. If the dog is kept in the house it can be a pain wiping up blood off the floor. Our females when in the house are kept in a laundry room.
If you know your not going to have a litter, then certainly you should have her spayed. Spaying is the process of removing the female’s reproductive organs. By doing this you are preventing certain health problems the dog could incur later in life if left intact. Ovarian cancer is one such disease. Spaying them before their first heat is preferred but can be done throughout the dog’s life.
Neutering is a term that means removing the reproductive organs out of both females as well as males but is most widely used referring to the male dog. Generally this means castration. It is a fairly simple procedure in which the vet makes an incision in the dog’s scrotum and removes his testicles.
Again, obviously if you never plan on breeding him then it’s probably best to have this done. The dog will still have plenty of desire to train and if exercised and fed properly, shouldn’t gain any weight. The problem is that many times the owner simply doesn’t know what they have at a young age and if the dog turns out great, you or someone else may want characteristics from him to live on in other dogs.
If you want to tone him down a bit and stop him from peeing on every tree or perhaps he acts aggressively to other dogs you can give it a try. Some dogs do tone down but others don’t. Either way you must be certain you will never want to use him for breeding.
Once this procedure has been done, there is no reversing it.