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. 
I had a friend once who refused to spay her dachshund, because she'd "become fat and lazy".  The thing was a hot dog who could only waddle and laid around all day.  Some people do not get it, no matter what.

Literally hundreds of thousands of dogs are spayed every year, and the chance of problems is so little compared to what can happen if they're not spayed, I think it's incredibly irresponsible not to, especially for a mutt.  As for hormone replacement therapy for women, doctors are moving away from that.  There's a reason your hormones decrease, and there's no reason to continue to pump artificial ones into your body.


colorisnteverything wrote:
The JC is like the Catholic Church of horses.