Hi, one of my large breed puppies has a fairly large hernia (other than that, he would have been pick of litter, he's gorgeous!) when i rang my vet regarding having a repair done, they said they do it at 6 months and couldn't give me an idea of cost. Does anyone have experience of this? what age have other people had them done and how much did it cost?

I had a small breed litter, and mum had really ripped the umbilical cord off badly, and it caused a hernia.  Ok it was very small, and I know most folk on CD say to leave them, but I won't.  I had my own vet repair it at 9 weeks, and let pup go 10 days later.

He did it for £160 I believe.  I have no regrets at all about having it done so young, as todays anaesthetics are so safe.  And my vet is the best.  :-)

I assume your talking about an umbilical hernia,we had one fixed and the vet quoted £200 or £30 extra if we had it done while he was being neuterd, Which we went for as he is just a pet and it came to about £190 for both. We had it done around 6-8 months, i know allot of people do leave them but we did'nt like the thought of that.

The need for repair and when depends on how serious the defect is, if there is bowel coming through the defect then that needs urgent surgery to prevent strangulation and gangrene.

Many are simply like an outie belly button or fatty blob with no other structures involved, these don't need surgery as it would just be cosmetic.

Think you need to ask your vet what is involved in the hernia, is it just a outer tear allowing fat to bulge or is it where the centre line of the abdomen wall has not closed allowing the internal organs to bulge through. If the first it can be left if the second it may need  repair now.

As someone has said the bulging belly button type needs no attention at all and to choose to repair that is purely a cosmetic act but as you say it is large it needs a vet to take a look as we can't see it we can't say.

My vet repaired a huge hernia at 4 1/2 weeks (it was more like part of her abdominal wall just hadn't developed rather than the "normal" hernias). When she was born I seriously considered pts, but she was perfect in every other way and as she developed you wouldn't have known anything was wrong until you saw a huge bulge. She was in and out of the vets within the space of a couple of hours and it cost me around £350. She coped really well and went off to her new home at 8 weeks.

A breeder friend of mine had a pup who's gut was out when born, she sent her hubby to the vets to have her PTS, he returned a short while later with the pup all sown up, it was discovered that the cords were very short and the problem was not a developmental one but trauma during the birth, she had no further problems and went off to her new home at 4 months old and is about 2yrs old now.

That is the sort of thing I meant Pedlee, there is a line down the centre of the abdomen where two sets of muscle join and sometimes they don't, or haven't, joined by birth so they need attention but the typical bulge at the navel may not need attention unless the hole goes through to the internal organs, then it needs repair.

Thanks for the advice everybody, we have had the occasional imbilical hernia before, and as mentioned, they have been smaller fatty lumps and most have dissappeared by 6 months of age. This one i can get my thumb into, it's not dark but is large and lumpy, he's growing rapidly and i expect this doesn't help! I think i'll try another vet and see what they think. I would rather have it repaired myself so that I know it is done and won't cause him any bother.

sorry...umbilical!

Think you need he advice of a vet if you are at all unsure, we can only guess and we should not advice on what we can't see.