Neutering - Page 3

This has been a long time, but my last male was neutered at 4 years old, I waited because I wanted to make sure he was done growing physically and mentally. Not into breeding and I am not a breeder.
Down the road he was arthritic, and lived to be almost 13.
Dawn

As stated before something going on with this post as this is the first time I am seeing it (5 days after original post).

Had a male that was neutered at 12 due to testicular cancer.  He lived to 14.

Nans - have you considered a vasectomy?  Dog will not be able to breed but will retain all of his hormones for health. If you are on Facebook this group as a lot of articles/studies about desexing vs. sterilization in their units section:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/alternativealteringinfo/

Koots, curious about your vet's recommendation on neutering. If you wanted to prevent the dog from passing on epilepsy, why wait until he was 6? Conversely, since there are some definitive negative changes caused by neutering, did he/she feel that could change the seizure pattern?

Have you seen a difference now that it's been a few months? Difference in seizures, I mean.

Jenni - Thor was neutered without any issues. I had him neutered mainly due to having a young female and not wanting any accidental breedings, especially with an epileptic dog. I was not going to breed him anyhow without him being titled, having an AD, etc. (per SV breeding practices) but then he got epilepsy so the prospect of him ever reproducing was out. The neutering did not change the frequency of his seizures, or the intensity/recovery time.

You mean he hadn't always had seizures? Then that's not really epilepsy, right? What caused them? Did you ever find out?

I was wondering because I had an older dog here belonging to a friend and she started having seizures. Tested everything under the sun, sent blood to various universities, spinal tap, everything that could explain the seizures, since genetic/idiopathic epilepsy is an early-onset disease, and came up with brain tumor as the diag. It seemed like her seizures started when she was pregnant, so we tried spaying her to see if that would reduce the frequency. It didn't. She progressed and finally passed away.

We had been hoping that the weak positive ehrlichiosis was to blame, as I've seen that before, but it wasn't. Tumor grew, she started having ocular seizures, and had a sudden bleed one day.

Kind off veering off topic... sorry.

His grand mal seizures started when he was 5.5 yrs old, and with all the testing the vet did it was inconclusive as to cause so the vet diagnosed idiopathic epilepsy.   Idiopathic epilepsy can occur as late as 6 yrs old according to some information.   Thor is now on Keppra (Leviteracetam) and Phenobarbitol to manage his episodes.    Fortunately they do not last long, usually around 1 - 1.5 min and his recovery time is fairly short, but he does the full-blown grand mal, sometimes with urination, but mostly not.  

http://vhc.missouri.edu/small-animal-hospital/neurology-neurosurgery/facts-on-neurologic-diseases/canine-idiopathic-epilepsy/

Neutering him has not seemed to cause any changes to his temperament, or his epilepsy, and he's a happy dog.    With our young female (now 6 mos.) he has found his 'inner puppy' and they have a great friendship.

 

Seizures can be caused by things in the environment.  You may or may not know they're present :-(  Examples:  the neighbor uses a permethrin on the yard and it washes/leaches into your yard where your dog plays/trains :-(  Or your neighbor is using rat/mouse poison and your dog/cat is eating live/dead poison rodents he/she finds in your yard :-(

https://www.aspcapro.org/resource/most-common-causes-seizures-dogs

https://www.aspcapro.org/resource/most-common-causes-toxin-seizures-cats

GSCat - that may be a cause for some cases, but we live on 5 acres with big gaps of separation between our neighbours, whom I can't even see because of the trees. The dogs are never loose in the yard without our supervision, otherwise they are in their big (30' x 80') kennel.  Also in my dog's case, he has had 23 seizures since his first episode, even with drug therapy he still has them usually at 2-3 week intervals.

 

When he was neutered, the vet used a sedative that was safe for epileptic dogs, and there were no complications during the surgery or afterwards.   The neutering did not make any difference to his seizures either in frequency or duration.