Oh bloody hell! Ewok 6 months and booked for spay tomorrow but I'm bottling it !!!

[Notonaschoolnight]

Argh don't know whether to ring vet and cancel or not, why can't there be a straightforward rule and instead be so hard

The pros

What comes with neutering before first season
She can go to the lovely home boarder we've found for 5 days in July and 2 days in Aug with me having peace of mind that nothing can happen she would be 7.5 months by then so could happen any time. (Boarder has an entire 2 year old boy)
Really not looking forward to hers (and mine) first season as I've never witnessed it before.

The big fat stinking cons that I'm struggling with
That it may affect her mental and physical growth and development by doing it before her first season.
I'm trusting someone else to look after her during a time when her season is imminent.

If I didn't go ahead(likely) I'd definitely be wanting to do it after first season but by choosing to call and cancel I'm struggling with the idea of having to live in limbo land as I understand that could take till she's 10 months old, so another 12 weeks after that.

[Notonaschoolnight]

Vet closes in 40min

[1MitchellMum]

Tricky ... I did mine after her first season ... and would do so again. Perhaps try and find another boarder?

[Wolfiefan]

I thought the let them have a season advice was old fashioned thinking. (No vet qualifications!) my DM had her tiny terrier done laperascopically (sp?). No problem and v quick recovery.
What do you think you'll gain by waiting. Talk to vet?

[LtEveDallas]

Get it done. The world doesn't need another litter when 36 dogs a day are killed.

MuttDog was done at 6 months because she was always around 3 entire males. It hasnt affected her at all, except that she has remained calm and docile as the crazy teenage hormones didn't have chance to kick in.

She needs to be spayed. Spay her, seriously.

[littlewhitebag]

Mine was done at 6 months. I think she was calmer afterwards.

[Vibbe]

Our vet told us that there's no point in waiting with spaying until after the first season. The longer you wait, the less benefits you'll have.

We did get her spayed after her first season, and although her season wasn't too bad, it wasn't great either. She was absolutely miserable, and just wanted to curl up on our laps and sleep all the time.

After we got her spayed, there were no problems. She doesn't react well to morphine (seemed to see things that weren't there, whined and so on, but as soon as the morphine plaster was taken off, it went away), but other than that, she was fine. As she's not too big a dog, she wore a baby onesie instead of that plastic cone until the stitches were taken out.

[Lilcamper]

In larger breeds it is now recommended to have them done after full maturity because the growth plates haven't closed properly yet.

[Notonaschoolnight]

Ewoks a sml/med dog, I think I'm going to go through with it I missed the vets window of being open due to a verruca sock trauma but if I want to cancel in the morning I would, but I'm not sure i will

[Frettchen]

A bit too late to comment, but FWIW I think you did the right thing. Unless your dog was a large breed, and thus at risk of physical damage by spaying, I don't see any benefit to you or your dog to wait a season before spay. I know dog owners on the show ring think differently, but there seem to be a number of ways the show dog owners and I think differently!