Is this right?

[Ilovemydogandmydoglovesme]

My friend has a lovely six month old lab bitch that she's just had spayed, about a month ago. Her trainer at her dog training club is cross with her about this. Apparently the dog is now robbed of her female hormones, she won't age into adolescence at the right time, she'll become male in habits and will want to cock her leg and this will confuse her and she'll be very difficult to train.

I have never heard such a crock of shit in my life. Please tell me this is bollocks? My friend is now a bit worried. And apparently her dog is the only one in the class that has been spayed and this has terribly inconvenienced the trainer.

Found a few things through googling.

This is from the pets at home website:

Again, spaying at under six months old is becoming increasingly more common within the UK, although there are a range of problems that can potentially be caused by spaying your bitch while she is very young. As with male dogs, female dogs need to produce the T3 and T4 growth hormones that begin production alongside of impending sexual maturity, as well as oestrogen for normal development and hormone regulation. A bitch that is spayed while too young will not have had the opportunity to have begun producing oestrogen and other essential hormones, which can lead to a range of problems in later life. Urinary incontinence can result from inadequate oestrogen production, a condition that cannot be reversed and will require ongoing oestrogen supplementation for the rest of their lives; something that is of course, not ideal for many reasons.

Once your bitch has completed her first season, you should seek to have her spayed shortly afterwards .This ensures that she has reached sexual maturity before spaying, and ensures that you can calculate where she is in her oestrogen cycle to ensure that she is spayed between cycles. Spaying a bitch in heat or who is on the verge of a season is much more risky for the bitch, and veterinarians will not spay a bitch in heat unless it is an emergency.

It does sound very early.

We had our lab bitch neutered at 8 months, before her first season, because we also have an entire male and didn't want a pregnancy. We think it's stunted her growth - she is very small, but it hasn't been negative in other ways.

Although if we were to have another bitch, I would be very tempted to have it carried out when she's older and has matured.

We have a 7 year old bitch and she was sorted at 6 months. We have never had a problem of any kind. She pees like any other bitch and was extremely easy to train. We do fun agility with her and my trainer loves her he says how brilliant she is at picking things up.

On the plus side she was over the operation very quickly. My vet did not think it odd to sort at that age and lots of rescues sort at that age. Her trainer sounds a bit odd

That should say speyed

There is no evidence of more hypothyroidism in bitches who are spayed early - large scale studies in US rescues. Certain bitches will get urinary incontinence regardless of when we spay them - again large scale study results.
All of my evidence is from a peer review of the studies by one of the leading small animal soft tissue surgeon vets in the UK presented at a peer meeting in June 2012 which I attended.
Yes bitches who are spayed before their first season have more infantile features, but some people like this. No it does not make them any harder to train and no she is not going to start cocking her leg - some bitches do, but actually I most commonly see it in entire bitches.

So there was a grain of truth in what the woman said but she was also exaggerating a bit?

Thanks for helping me out. I'm going to pass on this info to my friend. There's nothing she can do about having had her spayed but she might be aware of some behavioural aspects.

I'm glad the rest of it was bollocks. My friends dog is a bit like her pfb and she really worries about every aspect.

We've never had bitches before. This has not hitherto been a problem for me!

I've just looked it up myself. There's a lot of conflicting information isn't there?

I knew Mumsnet would be better.

I've had two bitches speyed before their first season with no problems, Both were very easy to train and neither cocked their leg. The vet said there are pros and cons to both pre and post first season speying and so I went with what was most convenient for me.

I think that's all you can do, there's so much different info out there.

I had my bitch spayed before her first season. 13 years on she has never cocked her leg or been hard to train. My vet did not think there was an issue with it and it was him that advised me to spay before season.
I remember she bounced back from the operation really quickly. The big problem was trying to prevent her over exerting herself.