Lola spaying issue

[JacksonsMom]

So Lola is now 8 months old. Birthday is September 4th. She is not spayed yet.

Question is, I am so not used to female dogs... I honestly don't even know when she will go into heat. I know she's in the time frame where she could but I wouldn't even know what to look for or how to know to be honest. No blood yet. Jackson is fixed so I'm not worried about any oopsies and neither of them have been acting any different (except Lola's appetite has decreased the past 2 days).

So question is, my parents are strapped for money this week so step-dad says not to book until next Friday or after. But I called a local high quality low cost spay/neuter clinic and have her booked for Tues morning. It's $85 for spay and $60 for preop bloodwork. I do question where they are cutting costs and how. I asked for preop bloodwork and they said they do it that morning and if everything looks alright, they'll go through with spay and if it doesn't, they won't. I asked if they could spay her while she's in heat and they said yes but it's a bit more tricky/complicated due to more blood, etc etc.

IF she is in heat now or by Tuesday (which I have no idea if she is), would you suggest either
A.) taking her to our regular vet and just spending more money, assuming they may be more trustworthy/knowledgeable about spaying a female in heat?
B.) take her to the low cost clinic
C.) let her have one heat cycle and spay her after

My problem/question with option C is I have no idea how to deal with a female in heat, and neither do my parents. I already told them public places are off limits but they don't take her anywhere anyway except car rides occasionally. I take her to dog parks and on walks but obviously wouldn't be able to. We live on a farm where there's no other dogs around so it's not like males will be hopping fences or anything to get to her. How much will she bleed, will she bleed at all? How long does a heat cycle typically last?

Thanks.

Here's the crazy girl herself.

 

[Beanie]

A first heat cycle may not even include bleeding, or much at all if she does. It's really hard to tell what it will be like without her having gone in, and even after that she may not demonstrate what would be typical for her for a couple years. An entire heat cycle is like 26 days or something like that..? It varies depending on the dog. But the bleeding part is probably what you're worried about and that is usually roughly a week.

I know when this came up on somebody's Facebook, a vet chimed in she has been working for a large number of years and never really noticed any difference in in-season versus not spays. Maybe the few vets we have here will chime in with their experiences.


She is a small dog so you can probably do it now without a huge amount of worry, but personally I would wait until she is at least a year. Her first heat, if she even has one you will notice, shouldn't be too bad. Get her some panties and let her wear them around, change/wash them every day (more if she starts bleeding like crazy but I doubt that) and don't let her outside alone even if you think there are no other dogs around. Watch Jackson around her because even neutered dogs can still find intact bitches super intriguing and a neutered male can still tie with a female, and while it won't result in puppies, it's not really something you want to happen LOL.

 

[Southpaw]

If you KNEW she was in heat I would wait. Typically we tell people to wait for 3 months after a heat cycle, basically so that the uterus can get back to normal and there's not as much blood loss etc.

I'm not exactly well versed in heat cycles, but I don't think it's uncommon for a first heat to be a silent heat, or at least mild. Cajun was 14 months old when we got her and her owner said she hadn't been in heat, now I'm assuming that's a truthful answer... but my vet said uhhh she looks a little too developed for a dog that's never been in heat. So our guess is that she was in heat, it just wasn't noticed.

Cajun had 1 heat cycle with us before we spayed her. If I recall, it lasted 3 weeks. She bled for 1 week - then 1 week of no discharge (standing heat, from what I remember of my reading at the time lol) - then 1 more week of bleeding. It was NOT bad at all. We had a diaper that we just put maxi pads in lol, changed the pads as needed. We still went for walks, we still went to the park, I never saw loose dogs and we certainly didn't get followed home by any lol like my mom was afraid of.
Also her girly bits were ginormous at this time. Seriously, couldn't miss it.

Honestly the worst part of the whole thing was that her focus and her drive was so off while she was in heat, and it seemed to take a couple months before she finally snapped back to her normal personality. It was weird. Dealing with the heat cycle itself was easy and we really made no changes in our lives, it was the affect on her personality that was annoying. I mean I had to drop her out of disc class because she wouldn't play with me and was so ridiculously distracted which was not normal for her (and at the time I thought she was just being a brat, but she went into heat like the first day of class, so in hindsight I think her hormones were just making her weird lol).

If you're not seeing like, full blown signs of heat I'd still take her in for her surgery. If she were JUST starting to go into heat, the spay is still pretty normal - not like it would be if she were at the end of/just finished a heat cycle.

 

[JacksonsMom]

A first heat cycle may not even include bleeding, or much at all if she does. It's really hard to tell what it will be like without her having gone in, and even after that she may not demonstrate what would be typical for her for a couple years. An entire heat cycle is like 26 days or something like that..? It varies depending on the dog. But the bleeding part is probably what you're worried about and that is usually roughly a week.

I know when this came up on somebody's Facebook, a vet chimed in she has been working for a large number of years and never really noticed any difference in in-season versus not spays. Maybe the few vets we have here will chime in with their experiences.


She is a small dog so you can probably do it now without a huge amount of worry, but personally I would wait until she is at least a year. Her first heat, if she even has one you will notice, shouldn't be too bad. Get her some panties and let her wear them around, change/wash them every day (more if she starts bleeding like crazy but I doubt that) and don't let her outside alone even if you think there are no other dogs around. Watch Jackson around her because even neutered dogs can still find intact bitches super intriguing and a neutered male can still tie with a female, and while it won't result in puppies, it's not really something you want to happen LOL.

Thank you! I was wondering if a first heat may not even be terribly noticeable. Yeah I was wanting to wait as long as possible to spay her anyway, for health reasons, I didn't want it done too soon but my parents are not well-versed in dogs at all, and even though she's their dog, I basically do all this type of stuff for her lol, otherwise she would never get groomed or taken to the vet properly. They mean well, they're just... ugh. So anyway, I honestly don't see them dealing with a diaper etc with her when I'm not here so I do think maybe I should just take her in. I mean she may not be in heat for all I know.

And thanks I will keep an eye on Jackson. Like I said, he's been acting totally normal as of now. lol. She's also always on leash and not outside alone so that's a plus.

 

[JacksonsMom]

If you KNEW she was in heat I would wait. Typically we tell people to wait for 3 months after a heat cycle, basically so that the uterus can get back to normal and there's not as much blood loss etc.

I'm not exactly well versed in heat cycles, but I don't think it's uncommon for a first heat to be a silent heat, or at least mild. Cajun was 14 months old when we got her and her owner said she hadn't been in heat, now I'm assuming that's a truthful answer... but my vet said uhhh she looks a little too developed for a dog that's never been in heat. So our guess is that she was in heat, it just wasn't noticed.

Cajun had 1 heat cycle with us before we spayed her. If I recall, it lasted 3 weeks. She bled for 1 week - then 1 week of no discharge (standing heat, from what I remember of my reading at the time lol) - then 1 more week of bleeding. It was NOT bad at all. We had a diaper that we just put maxi pads in lol, changed the pads as needed. We still went for walks, we still went to the park, I never saw loose dogs and we certainly didn't get followed home by any lol like my mom was afraid of.
Also her girly bits were ginormous at this time. Seriously, couldn't miss it.

Honestly the worst part of the whole thing was that her focus and her drive was so off while she was in heat, and it seemed to take a couple months before she finally snapped back to her normal personality. It was weird. Dealing with the heat cycle itself was easy and we really made no changes in our lives, it was the affect on her personality that was annoying. I mean I had to drop her out of disc class because she wouldn't play with me and was so ridiculously distracted which was not normal for her (and at the time I thought she was just being a brat, but she went into heat like the first day of class, so in hindsight I think her hormones were just making her weird lol).

If you're not seeing like, full blown signs of heat I'd still take her in for her surgery. If she were JUST starting to go into heat, the spay is still pretty normal - not like it would be if she were at the end of/just finished a heat cycle.

Huh interesting. Okay thanks. I haven't really noticed any personality changes - she still generally acts like a moron :rofl1: and she's still super playful. Like I said the only thing I noticed was her not as eager to eat... even wet food. But she did eat her dinner happily tonight after playing outside for a bit so maybe she was just being quirky.

I'm now just debating if I should continue to take her to the low cost clinic or regular vet. I mean I'm assuming we'll end up paying $400 at regular vet when all said and done compared to like $150 at the clinic. But my mom does want the best for her, so we were kind of debating and talking tonight about what would be best. I know spays are so common and they do them all the time but we are definitely wanting to stack the odds in our favor, I don't know. I had Jackson neutered at a clinic before I ever did research/etc, and it was a fine experience, but I know boys are easier anyway.

 

[Michiyo-Fir]

Although silent heats do happen, I don't think based on your info that she is in heat.

A lot of small dogs go into their first heat quite late too, our Cav didn't have her first heat until 14 months old.

If you don't notice anything that might indicate to you that she's in heat, I would assume she isn't and just take her in for the scheduled spay. A slight increase in appetite may be anything from more exercise, to a growth spurt. The chances in my opinion of her being in heat or coming into it in the next few days is quite low.

The most noticeable things that happened during a heat with our dogs, especially the first heat is the enlarging of the vulva and nipples. If you these changes then I might suspect she's in heat.

ETA: Nia was spayed at a low cost SPCA clinic at 8 months old. I don't think they even offered the option of additional blood work. I think it was $120 and I trusted the clinic just fine because they perform hundreds of spays and neuters as they are an SPCA clinic. The only downside is they send the dogs home without any pain medication or antibiotics which some clinics do. However, the SPCA clinic said it wasn't necessary.

 

[Grab]

I haven't used them, but our local low cost clinic can offer lower prices because, due to their status, they receive grants, as well as extremely discounted supply costs. I don't think they cut any corners necessarily.

 

[milos_mommy]

I've never heard of any problems from a low cost clinics, and I know a lot of t of people who use them.

That said, I didn't even know vets did spays during heat except emergencies?!? I've always waited to get rescues fixed after their cycles ended but I can't remember if that's because ACC won't do it or someone just told me to. Either way, I'd wait til after her cycle and bring her to the clinic.

 

[krissy]

We have a tech who used to work at a low cost spay/neuter clinic. I think it's slightly terrifying. Now, each clinic may work differently, but she told us there's a set premed that all the animals get pretty much regardless. It is based on weight of course, but they don't choose different drugs for each patient as an individual. Everyone got premedicated at the same time and then they took patients out one after the other. So the last patient to go was often sedated in their kennel for a couple hours before being done. No IV fluids. No post-op monitoring.

It's not like they just didn't care, but something has to give for a spay to cost $80, that's just insane.

My tech couldn't take it so she quit to find a job where she could practice better medicine.

It's not to say that things can't go wrong with your regular vet... but they have her entire history, they know her and they know you, and there's almost no doubt she'll get more diligent care. I highly recommend asking questions of both places about their anesthetic and surgical procedures, monitoring equipment, etc. before making a decision.

 

[Elrohwen]

Not real comment on the heat and spaying part because I haven't been through it, but I just read this article an hour ago and it goes over a lot of your questions about low cost clinics, what to look for, what to ask, etc:
http://teamunruly.com/?p=7258

 

[Brattina88]

With my next dog, I knew I wanted to wait until after 1yr at least. With Skye she was 1 and we weren't sure when she was going to go into heat.... Then one day she was really explosive during a walk. I was really discouraged because up until that point her temperament has been ideal. That night I told my mom I had suspicions she would start bleeding soon. Two days later she was in full blown messy heat she was really clingy but other than that, she was fine. My moms male dogs didn't bother her, she would try to play constantly but a "no" was all it took. And I didn't walk her at all, we had 2 stray male dogs come to the house....
The hardest part was keeping underware on her :rofl1: but really the whole thing wasn't a big deal at all.

Afterwards her temperament was a bit sharper, I guess you could say. We spayed her and she calmed down, but just a teensy little smidge :lol-sign:

ETA: we waited a whole month after her heat to spay her.

 

[milos_mommy]

Actually, the only dog I had spayed after heat was like 2 weeks after the bleeding stopped, and she got a UTI shortly after...could that have been related?

 

[DJEtzel]

I didn't read all of the replies because I don't have a ton of time, but I wanted to input-

I've been working at a high volume, low cost, spay and neuter clinic for the last 2 years. We alter on average, 50 dogs a week and 160+ cats.

Adults, puppies, large and small. We spay dogs and cats in heat ALLTHETIME and have never had an issue in the 2 years I've been working here. Literally not one complication due to estrus. If I had to guess a number, probably 5 dogs each week are in heat, and 75% of the female cats are in heat when they come in.

And that said, we don't even do pre-op bloodwork.

I would do it regardless of whether or not she came into season.

eta; the fact is, spay/neuter clinics are more knowledgeable on this and have more experience doing it d/t volume. I think it would be a mistake to take her to a regular full service vet that rarely does these surgeries. Most vets around here alter around 5-10 dogs per week. Just not the same stats.

 

[Brattina88]

The only reason I wanted to wait with my next dog is because of Maddie's early incontinence.... My vets daughter (who is also a vet, took over her dads practice) said that it could be due to being spayed so early. I don't think there's any way of knowing. She's on meds and it's fine now but I only did it as a convenience for myself, which I feel was selfish of me, now.

 

[joce]

I would avoid spaying early just because there can be spay incontinence. I think it's worse with longer haired breeds because the vulva can be turned or something like that? I know that one lab site used to have pics that explained it. After a heat or two or sexual maturity it usually fixed itself but if fixed to young it doesn't.

I do not mind the high volume alter clinics generally. They get a lot of practice. And some use vets from local clinics that volunteer.

My cousins lab had complications from her spay while she was in heat years ago. Vet blamed it on that. I want to say it was a lot of bleeding but this was a while ago so I'd have to ask her to be sure?

 

[AmberH]

We're trying to make the decision on when to spay too. I had an appointment set up for Gremlin a couple weeks ago but didn't go. Gremlin is going to be six months old here in a few days and I'm so torn on whether or not to let her age some more before getting it done. I wanted to wait until she was 1+ years old. But I also have an intact male (with a huge size difference between them) and I don't want to go through the trouble of keeping them separate. Lazy? Maybe. lol All of our other girls were done young. Em was probably around 5-6 months, Bayleigh was 3 months, and Penny was 6 months old. We've had no issues with any of them.

I use a low cost spay and neuter clinic and I love them! I've actually volunteered there several times. It's only $55 for dogs and cheaper for cats but they have to have their rabies vaccine and if they don't, it's something like $18 more for it. They do around 30-40 animals a day (dogs, cats, rabbits).
https://www.facebook.com/spayneuterspot?fref=ts

I would trust a s/n clinic much more than a regular vet. Like stated above, that's all they do. They've had a lot of time and practice to perfect the art.

 

[JacksonsMom]

Ok guys thanks for all your input. Little Lola will be dropped off tomorrow morning -- we're just going to do it and get it over with. I really doubt she's in heat honestly... so I'm thinking we're doing it at a perfect time. They'll do the pre-op bloodwork first and if anything is wonky, they'll call us.

This is the place she's going and I think they seem trustworthy. http://www.spayspa.org

 

[JacksonsMom]

Well sweet Lola came out okay. She is very groggy, obviously, and out of it still. Stupid me didn't buy any kind of e-collar and now at 9 at night she's acting interested in what's going on down there... ugh. Really don't need her licking at her during the night while I'm asleep.

Poor thing is so confused.

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[DogKisses]

A t shirt might help a little