Hi All

Am having my four year old toy breed bitch spayed in the next couple of weeks and would be interested to hear your thoughts.....putting aside the cost, what would you say is better, conventional spay or keyhole spay? 

I have heard good and bad things about both so really need some advice.

Thanks :)

I have a tiny breed and asked my vet about the benefits of keyhole.

He said that, given how small his incision is for the operation, there seemed little point in the small breeds having two chances of a site for infection.  I have to say that I see his point, as he has spayed quite a few bitches for me with no problems.

I understand that the equipment required is very expensive, so adding an extra £100 or so to the cost.  While cost would never be a reason to deprive my dogs of the best treatment, I made the decision to stay with traditional spays.  It may well be that, if I had a large breed, I would feel differently.  I'm not sure.  My large breed bitch is 13 years old, so her spay was before keyhole was available.

I'm happy to stick with traditional.

As above - in a small breed the incision is going to be pretty tiny anyway - probably no bigger than the total length of the two incisions needed for a laproscopic spay. Six of one and half a dozen of the other I'd say, though bear in mind that we don't have a laproscope in the practice where I work so maybe somebody who has experience of having their bitch done laproscopically will chip in with more info for you.

Yep have had all but one bitched spayed by normal incision and the last girl had keyhole and had suspected Pyo and we had caught it in time and had it via keyhole as the cameras showed no great infection to clear out so the Op went well and her recovery time was so much quicker. Having the Human version as well rather than incision my recover was amazing so will vouch for it as well !

I have always had traditional spay on 2 mature bitches post breeding but they have both developed spay I continence so with my next  girls will opt for lap spay in hope that leaving uterus in situ will help with urodynamics. Only time will tell if if will be worth the extra expense. No immediate plans to spay at the moment

I think you can tell what breed my bitch is by my user name :-) maybe if I explain a bit more behind the question too you may be able to give me advice/thoughts on it....

My vets that I normally use only do conventional spay....they charge £160 including after care.  There is another vet down the road that offers keyhole and conventional spay. They charge £150 for conventional and £440 for keyhole.....

I was quite happy to go with my vets conventional spay as they talked me through it and explained that her incision would be very small, she would have internal stitches and it wouldn't be a big deal. I was happy to go ahead UNTIL I found out that they keep them in overnight after the operation, yet the vet is not manned 24 hours and they only have someone from the emergency vet service they use (medivet) come in every one to two hours to check on them. I was very unhappy about this and had a rather "heated" discussion when she was booked in a few weeks back to be spayed but as it turned out she had a phantom and we had to delay.

She's now booked in again for this Friday and I've told the vet I am not happy for her to stay in an unattended surgery on her own, and that I want to collect her after the op. They have now said that I can do this as long as I sign a disclaimer which goes along the lines of "I accept full responsibility for the health and welfare of my dog as I am removing her from medical care".....

I contacted this other vet based near me who offer the two types of spay and they confirmed they send them home after the op and they don't believe in keeping them in, as have every other vet I spoke to, and after talking to them they mentioned and recommended the keyhole spay. However I'm not sure whether its because its so much more expensive and therefore more of a money spinner for them.

I've had some good advice from another forum about what they believe I should do but I'm still so undecided about it, hence my posting. There's always such good advice on here :-)

After reading your info I have to say that I would only ever use a vet that does 24 hour vet attendance.  I realise that not all have this option before someone screams at me.  With your breed I would go with conventional spay.  Just my choice.