Should you Spay or Neuter your French Bulldog Puppy?

What was once a very stock recommendation to all my puppy owners has evolved as new research findings have emerged. And, in fairness, as I’ve dug more into the seriousness of the outcome of neutering, I had to leave the comfort of “one size fits all.”

My newer recommendation goes something like this now:

If you can prevent unplanned pregnancies, (and if you have a female and don’t mind living through heat cycles) you may want to keep your animal intact and not neuter.

Emphasis on “if” on the pregnancy question — I’m not wanting unplanned pups  any more than those on the front lines in shelters and rescue groups who see way too many of them. Oops is not an option.

A Swedish study of 461 dogs revealed 99% were intact, not neutered. A Hungarian study showed 57% intact dogs, and a British survey found 46% intact dogs. Hmmm. Do they know something we don’t?

What Happens When We Neuter?

Hormone production is mostly in the testes or ovaries, though a smaller amount is produced elsewhere, for example in the adrenal glands.

When spaying or castration (collectively called neutering) takes place, we shut off the major source of the sex hormones testosterone, estrogen, and progesterone. While neutering prevents pregnancy, you have to evaluate the risks against the benefits to decide where the balance point is for you and your animals.

Clear Benefits

The good that comes from neutering is:

• Birth control
• Cessation of heat or estrus cycles
• Absence of behavior that goes with the sexually intact animal

Downsides and Risks

What’s become of greater interest to me are several studies showing the ill effects of surgical gonadectomy, or instant hormone-pause.

A study done in UC Davis and published in February 2013 revealed some startling health consequences of neutered animals, both male and female. The research tracked 759 Golden Retrievers, and looked at early neuter (less than one year of age) vs later neuter (12 months or older) vs intact dogs and five common diseases:

1. Hip dysplasia (HD), the arthritis of the hip joint common to dogs
2. Cranial cruciate ligament (CCL) damage, the “football injury” of dogs’ knees
3. Hemangiosarcoma (HSA), a type of cancer that can be fatal
4. Lymphosarcoma (LSA), immune system cancer, usually fatal
5. Mast cell tumors (MCT), yet another cancer that can kill dogs

To summarize the researchers’ findings:

• Neutered animals fared significantly worse in all five diseases.
• Early neuter of males doubled the rate of hip dysplasia compared to intact males.
• None of the intact animals had cruciate ligament disease. Zero. It only appeared in the neutered animals.
• Early neutered males had three times more LSA than the intact males, while late neutered males had no LSA.
• The percentage of HSA was four times higher in late neutered females than in either intact or early neutered females.
• MCT was absent in intact females but present in neutered females. In males, neutering status made no difference.

So, in dogs of both sexes, neutering had significant ill effects in this large study, though it wasn’t uniform across the board.

When to Do the Deed?

If you’ve decided to neuter, after weighing risks and benefits, timing is everything. Growing to maturity with one’s hormones fully intact is best. I’m speaking here not of sexual maturity, but the cessation of growth and the closure of the bone growth plates.

Maturity comes at different times in different breeds. In general, the smaller the adult weight, the sooner maturity will set in. That might be 9 – 12 months in the wee breeds, and up to two years in the bigger guys, like Danes and Mastiffs.

Here’s the trick: you want the hormones intact until growth to mature size is finished, but you don’t want unplanned for pregnancies, either.

Traditional Spay-Neuter Shouldn’t Be the Answer for Every Dog

It’s time to consider broader use of alternative sterilization procedures that don’t remove the ovaries or testes, especially for large and giant breed dogs.

A growing body of scientific evidence indicates that spaying and neutering dogs, especially large and giant breeds, and especially at an early age, increases the risk for a wide range of long-term health problems.

Animal Health vs. Animal Welfare

Given the mounting evidence that desexing may not be appropriate in every instance, animal health organizations such as the Morris Animal Foundation and the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) have begun to back away from the 1970s-era orthodoxy that called for early spay/neuter for every pet in the U.S.Back then, both veterinarians and responsible pet owners signed on wholeheartedly to the spay/neuter movement out of a genuine desire to help solve the terrible problem of unwanted pets, tens of millions of which were euthanized in shelters each year.Today, 31 states and the District of Columbia require that pets adopted from shelters be spayed or neutered before they leave the facility, or that adopters contractually agree to have the procedure performed within a certain timeframe. The ASPCA (American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) and other animal welfare organizations also advocate early desexing of all companion animals.To animal welfare groups charged with managing unwanted pets, the current spay/neuter strategy makes sense.They are necessarily focused on the big picture, and the most effective way to reduce the homeless pet population is to prevent pregnancy. Whereas individual pet owners only have to make sterilization decisions for the dogs in their care, animal welfare organizations must make those decisions on a much larger scale, for the good of the many rather than the few.

How About a Compromise? Sterilization Without Desexing

The reason, in simple terms, that spays/neuters can cause long-term health problems is because these procedures remove the hormone-producing gonads (ovaries or testes). These hormones are used by the body in a multitude of important ways — especially in the case of young animals. Removing the gonads removes dogs’ ability to make these very important naturally occurring substances.Spays and neuters are desexing procedures (i.e., they remove the animal’s ability to produce sex hormones) used primarily for purposes of sterilization to prevent pregnancy. What many pet owners don’t realize, and veterinarians aren’t taught in vet school, is that dogs can be sterilized without being desexed.For example, female dogs can undergo a modified spay, also called an ovary-sparing spay or hysterectomy (vs. ovariohysterectomy) that removes the uterus but leaves the ovaries in place, and male dogs can have a vasectomy that preserves the testes. Both procedures result in sterilization, but without removing the gonads and the hormones they produce.

Ovary-Sparing Spay

Because the ovaries are preserved in modified spays, female dogs continue to have estrous cycles (go into heat), but since the uterus has been removed, there’s no bloody discharge. However, the vulva does enlarge. In addition, females continue to secrete pheromones that are attractive to male dogs, and they are receptive to males during their cycles.It’s recommended that female dogs who’ve undergone ovary-sparing spays not be allowed to mate while in heat, for post-surgery anatomical reasons that may increase the risk of vaginal trauma.

Vasectomy

Vasectomy in dogs is similar to the procedure for men. Each vas deferens (a tube that carries sperm from the testes and epididymis to the urethra during ejaculation) is cut or clamped so that sperm cannot move through. The procedure is completed under anesthesia but is relatively quick and simple. Technical details can be found here. This method of sterilization is accepted by the American Veterinary Medical Association.

There are few health concerns when completing a hormone-sparing sterilization on a male dog, since the only health conditions prevented by neuter are benign prostatic hyperplasia in older dogs (which is treatable by neuter or noninvasive electromagnetic therapy), and testicular cancer (which is also a disease of old age and is treated by castration, which is usually curative).

The dog will be sterile but will still have hormones and be attracted to females in heat. Thus, owners must be willing to keep their dogs from roaming in search of females.”

Unfortunately, only full spays and neuters are taught in U.S. veterinary schools, so there are relatively few veterinarians across the country who have learned alternative techniques. Please take a minute to email your state veterinary teaching hospital (if you have one) or the AVMA and ask that students be taught alternative techniques while in vet school.The good news is that the Parsemus Foundation has compiled a state-by-state list of veterinarians who do provide such services.

My Sterilization Recommendations

My approach is to work with each individual pet parent to make decisions that will provide the most health benefits for the dog. Whenever possible, I prefer to leave dogs intact. However, this approach requires a highly responsible pet guardian who is fully committed to and capable of preventing the dog from mating (unless the owner is a responsible breeder and that’s the goal).It’s important to note that I’m not advocating the adoption of intact shelter animals to people who may or may not be responsible pet owners. Shelter veterinarians don’t have the time or resources to build a relationship with every adoptive family, so the animals in their care must be sterilized prior to adoption to prevent more litters of unwanted pets.My second choice is to sterilize without desexing so the testes or ovaries can continue to produce hormones essential for the dog’s health and well-being.Rarely, older, intact male dogs develop moderate to severe benign prostatic hyperplasia (an enlarged prostate) that may be improved with conventional neutering. Generally speaking, mature intact dogs have had the benefit of a lifetime of sex hormone production, so the endocrine imbalances we see with spayed or neutered puppies don’t occur when dogs are desexed in their later years.Unfortunately, as I mentioned earlier, veterinary schools in the U.S. only teach full spays and neuters, so unless your own vet has obtained additional training in sterilization techniques that spare the ovaries or testicles (which is unlikely), you may have only one option available to sterilize your pet.In that case, my suggestion would be to wait until your dog has reached full musculoskeletal maturity, and if you have a female, I’d also wait until she’s completed her second estrus cycle before scheduling the surgery.

Analysis by Dr. Karen Shaw BeckerFeb 13, 2023 •