I am a believer that animals just like people needs all their parts to have a healthy normal life & when parts are removed &
especially to young causes more problems then just unwanted babies.

I was  Wondering if any one has had this done on their dogs & if so any problems? I am thinking on having this done on Moose at 3 yrs old if my vet
can do it. If not we are leaning more to leaving her intact. Since she is a large breed dog & I want to give her the best longevity I can.

ovary-sparing spay on animals to give them the best healthy life possible?
http://www.parsemusfoundation.org/ovary-sparing-spay/ http://www.ivcjournal.com/articles/the-pros-of-partial-spay/

Very interesting and informative video, thanks for sharing.

I would have considered this for my girls as it allows the sex hormones to keep working.

Your welcome :-)

Def something we are looking into- I e-mailed it to my vet & local humane society.
Just a lil worried since our vet doesn't do this we def don't want our girl to be the 1st
so to speak, also not sure if they will do it :-( If not then leaning more to keeping her intact.

Does anybody know if there are actually any vets in the UK who perform this procedure, or how one might find out, rather than just randomly contacting vets? Would the RCVS, for instance, be able to tell me?

Thanks in advance.

Dollface, Thanks so much for posting those links. It is the first time I have come across any articles on this subject. BeagleBaggie, it must be worth a conversation with your vet to find out if he will consider it.  I guess it depends on how open minded he is.

>I guess it depends on how open minded he is.

Or whether he's bought the special equipment needed.

To be honest, I'm sure there'd be no point asking either of our vets. In the UK at the moment, this is strictly the realm of the veterinary pioneer, and neither of the two vets' practices we use are that.

I assumed we'd have to travel, just wondered if there was actually anybody in the UK yet doing this at all. My sense is that not.

beagle baggie there is one down in dorset atm . Have you joined the fb group for this there is file there with  the vets details in. I too am interested to find out more for the future

Very helpful. Thanks. I never think to look at Facebook for this sort of thing. I'll look now. Thanks again.

Just to report back from that extremely helpful Facebook group that there are apparently at least two vets in the UK currently doing the procedure, one in Beominster, one in Consett.

I suspect that means there are more elsewhere, which is good news, I think.

excellent news just need to keep our eyes open them. I have thought of having an overnight stay in dorset the others are too far from me. still deciding if and when to have her spayed though. Yes there are some good groups on fb have you looked at the canine health concern group ? that is where I found out about this alternative to spaying in the first place. 

just realised the beaminster on is the one in Dorset ! obviously geography is not my strongest subject lol

Along similar lines but for boys I was curious about a vasectomy for my boy, I phoned my vets practice, we have a soft tissue specialist there.

They were very much against it saying it is not a sensible thing to do and that straight forwards castration is best,  after much discussion and my commenting that I will be trying other vets to see if others could/would do it they have now said that yes it can be done but would be more expensive, so if I decided I wanted to then I have that option

I think that with both ops it's more a case of what they're mainly trained for.

My vet has also said that removing the uterus but not the ovaries can mean that the bitch is still susceptible to pyo as it is the ovaries that influence the opening of the cervix during a season which he tells me would still happen even if the uterus were removed and therefore the bitch could still get pyo in the remnants of the uterus stump left attached to the cervix.

Not too sure on how true that is, maybe he was just trying to fob me off 

>My vet has also said that removing the uterus but not the ovaries can mean that the bitch is still susceptible to pyo as it is the ovaries that influence the opening of the cervix during a season which he tells me would still happen even if the uterus were removed and therefore the bitch could still get pyo in the remnants of the uterus stump left attached to the cervix.

Yes, that's true. She would also be attractive to dogs at every 'season' - with all the associated swelling and so forth which are controlled by the hormone release, just no discharge (as no uterus to create the discharge).

As those who have bitches who have a remnant left of their ovaries and give off season smells have found this can cause real issues in multisex households, or where bitches are bitchy whilst in season.

I have a friend who has terrible problems when her spayed bitch 'comes in season' and causes issues between her males.

For a bitch that is shown or at training for example not having any bleeding means a very attractive bitch could really put of male dogs or even cause fights

As for vasectomy versus castration surely vasectomy is a less complex job, could even be done under Local anaesthetic as in humans, or under sedation.

l">As for vasectomy versus castration surely vasectomy is a less complex job, could even be done under Local anaesthetic as in humans, or under sedation.

One would think so and I do too but according to my vet because it is not the normal procedure it makes it more 'specialist'.

When making my enquiries I phoned 5 local practices, 2 of which are vet hospitals, I had refusals from all except my own vet who after discussion with other partners agreed to do it if I wish although he admitted he could not understand my reasoning for it.

"My vet has also said that removing the uterus but not the ovaries can mean that the bitch is still susceptible to pyo as it is the ovaries that influence the opening of the cervix during a season which he tells me would still happen even if the uterus were removed and therefore the bitch could still get pyo in the remnants of the uterus stump left attached to the cervix."

For this reason the entire uterus and cervix should be removed in an OSS, eliminating the risk of pyo.

It does make a lot of sense that leaving the ovaries behind does leave the 'engine' that drives the season and therefore a lot of the problems that can be associated with it.

I have recently had 2  6yr old girls spayed but they have only had ovaries removed and not the uterus, my vet also tells me that this is now the more modern approach, less invasive.

I was concerned that they may still be able to get pyo but he said again that without ovaries the cervix would not open to allow bacteria in.

Yes I have it does seem if you leave the ovaries you gain one way but not in others. In theory stump pyo and definitely signs of a season but no bleeding.

The other option is removal of the ovaries which prevents both those things but doesn't leave the hormones.
Leaving the hormones gives the advantage of not affecting joints behaviour etc .
I guess one of the problems is neither of these different types of neutering has been done sufficiently to give a large enough number of dogs to study which makes it harder to weigh up what you want to do. As far as I can see the main reason for removing just the ovary's is because it can  be done larposcopically therefore easier on the bitch and it is said it stops pyo as there are no ovaries and no stump and obviously seasons.
As you say less invasive but still removes the hormones.
choices choices choices !
Still not done everywhere. I am surprised vasectomy isnt more popular but as someone said unless the vet is specifically trained which I doubt is the norm it wont yet become common place

Presumably, a dog that had had a vasectomy would do better in the show ring than a testicle removed one? I know you CAN show a castrated male, but have always been told that one wouldn't expect to win with one....

Interesting question hants. No idea I would hazard a guess it should be registered as neuteted even if it looks physically tje same ?

>Presumably, a dog that had had a vasectomy would do better in the show ring than a testicle removed one? I know you CAN show a castrated male, but have always been told that one wouldn't expect to win with one....

Definitely and it's masculine physical traits would not be negatively affected.  The dog just needs to have apparently normal testicles not be fertile.

Kennel club definition is operations to prevent breeding so yes would technically need to report it to KC, but would do much better in the ring with both testicles left in the bag.