Spaying Kushi

Kushi got spayed a month ago when she turned 5 months old. Before her operation, I did research online to see what the pros/cons of spaying are and at what age to do the operation. One thing I learned is that some people can be really polarized about neutering/spaying. We wanted to spay her before her first heat, since dogs can often have their first heat starting from 6 months. Supposedly, spaying dogs before they have their first heat reduces their chances of getting mammary cancer to almost nil. Spaying also prevents uterine infection (pyometra), obviously, since the uterus is removed.

But another side effect of spaying that I actually did not know about until after the operation is that a percentage (perhaps even as high as 25%, depending on size of dog) of spayed dogs can develop estrogen-related incontinence later on in life. Supposedly, estrogen helps maintain muscle tone, and without the estrogen, the muscles controlling the bladder become weak, resulting in leaking. By the way, this can also happen to women in menopause. Oh the joys of becoming old... Learning about this after the fact disturbed me a bit, since this side effect is often not mentioned or downplayed on pro-spaying sites. To me, incontinence is not a minor side effect.

Our vet charged $400 (!!), and we debated whether to go to the local humane society, which charges less than $150. In the end, though, we decided to bite the $ bullet and hoped that throwing all that money at the vet meant that all would be well for Kushi (hah).

There was no preparation except to make sure not to feed her after 8 pm the night before. Giving her water, though, was fine. We dropped her off at 8:30 am on a Friday. Friday is a good day to schedule the operation because then you have the weekend to watch over your puppy's recovery. We got a call at around 2pm from the vet, letting us know Kushi was finished with the operation and had woken up. Kushi was kept overnight for observation and we picked her up the next morning. She was wearing an elizabethan collar (e-collar) around her neck to prevent her from licking her incision. The incision was 1.5 inches long and had dissolving sutures, so we wouldn't need to return later to the vet to get her sutures removed.

When she arrived home, she was whining, presumably from the pain. She seemed to need to go potty very frequently, sometimes going pee twice in the same session. We took her collar off and watched her during the day to make sure she didn't lick at her incision. She didn't really lick at it much so we kept her collar off. By the afternoon, she had stopped whining and had started to jump around, feeling more like herself. We did our best to keep her from being too active, so she wouldn't tear her stitches. "Tried" being the operative word. We didn't feed her till her evening meal.

Kushi with the incision on her belly

The next day on Sunday, we took her for a short walk. I carried her up and down the flights of stairs, so she wouldn't strain her stitches, but she was raring to go. It's amazing to see how rapidly she was recovering from a major surgery. Puppies seem to regenerate so quickly. I wonder what would happen if I snipped off her tail...

On Monday, we took her for her full daily walk. We skipped out on the dog parks for a week, though. We also did not bathe her for two weeks. By then, her incision had completely healed over. We're happy that everything went so well!