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Old May 8th, 2013, 12:52 AM
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TeriM TeriM is offline
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Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: North Vancouver, BC
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The spaying/neuter issue is a tough one. Large dogs rarely come into heat before about 10 months and can easily be much later than that. Stella was just over the 10 month mark. I have opted to wait until she is fully matured before spaying based on a lot of the research that is shown in Longblades post. My breeder also requires a minimum of one year old before she could be spayed. Her second heat was 8 months after the first one. We likely will have to do one more cycle before spaying as I am hoping to finish her conformation title and also the best timing would be about three months after the heat started so that all the organs are in their full "resting" phase.

I will spay but will choose to do the ovariectomy which leaves the uterus. The surgery is much less invasive and is the common procedure in Europe. The uterus in a dog that has gone through a heat cycle is much bigger than one that hasn't even if they haven't been bred so that is another reason I would opt for that.

The actual heat is a bit of a pain. Stella isn't all that bad to deal with but Riley was a pain in the @ss. The second heat I had xpens set up and things went a lot smoother. The actual cycle is usually three weeks but dogs are only fertile and receptive for one week of that. I did a blog post on my experience if you are interested. http://lifewithrileystella.blogspot....eat-cycle.html
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