goflippr wrote:
KingOfTheJungle04 wrote:
Nola - I am very unfamiliar with statistics and my question wasn't intended to be snarky. I am just cautious to leap to a decision based on one person's comment without evidence to back it up.
I've also heard that if you spay before their first heat you reduce the risk of breast cancer by 50% but after the second heat there's no chance.
My point is that a lot of people throw statistics out without actual scientific proof.
She's not a breeding animal (nor quality) so rest assured that's not the reason at all why she isn't spayed. I know several dogs spayed and then having incontinence issues as well as losing their personality (become a lout just subdued and laying around) that I haven't jumped on the spay train just yet.
However she WILL eventually be spayed just not yet, her hips are more of a concern than her uterus at the moment to grab my attention.
For now I'm being responsible in that. She's not unsupervised around strange dogs or in an area with them.

And thanks to those who replied with their thoughts, very helpful

I've owned spayed female dogs my entire life, never had an overweight dog, or had one become a subdued lout, they had plenty of personality (some too much) and never had one that was incontinent so if we are using anectodotal evidence there's mine. 
Same here. 

My female dogs (spayed) were all bouncy, energetic, loving, bitchy-grumpy, stubborn, ball/toy obsessed and a correct weight all through their lives. One we had spayed at 6mo before her heat I imagine, and the other was a show dog and we were considering breeding her and spayed her at 4 or 5 I believe, we got lucky and she didn't get mammary gland cancer.  She however died of an aortic tumour wrapped around her esophagus and in a ventricle (or atria, can't recall). 
Now that I think about it, she used to dig and also would pick fights more when she was a bitch but that lessened a wee bit after being spayed.