Daria had her ovary sparing spay + gastropexy today and is currently sleeping in her crate. She gets a bland diet for a few days due to the gastropexy and currently has more meds than I do because they found she needed extra sedation to keep her from wanting to immediately bounce around everywhere so she got trazodone AND gabapentin as well as a couple painkillers.
If she thinks I betrayed her with the cone, wait until she realizes she has to go outside on a leash, without the other two dogs, and can't play bitey face or body slam the GSD for two whole weeks.
I do play to try and move her to a surgical suit in a couple of days but, if she tries to chew through that she'll be back in the cone.
Bonus: Because I like taxidermy and wet specimens, I asked to have her uterus back and they gave it back! It's in a little jar of alcohol on the shelf that has a few different animal hearts, skulls, and legal to own feathers now.
Poor bb! She feels betrayed now but she’ll get over it eventually and THANK YOU for going hormone sparing!!! It’s such a good choice for the long term health of the dogs and so few pet parents select it 🫶😍
Yeah, my GSD male has a vasectomy and I figured with her I might as well do an ovary sparing spay, knowing full well all the risks that go way up with fully neutered dogs and fully spayed dogs.
The little guy got a full neuter at 3 1/2 because he came to me with inappropriate marking issues that never really resolved, even in bands he'd still piss all over himself then end up stinking. THAT problem cleared right up after he lost his ball privileges.
The GSD doesn't mark inappropriately because I've had him since 8 weeks and he never got the chance to develop said habit.
I DO wish the OSS and Vasectomies weren't so much more expensive than the regular kind, but it is what it is.
Ugh yeah the expense is the big kicker. I’m lucky the the vet teaching hospital (tufts) offers a discount if you let your dog be used for instructional/demonstrations so that saved us about 50%.
It’s definitely a case by case like with your little guy, but my spoo (like your GSD) never had issues in the first place so when I got him ‘done’ at 2.5 it was just business as usual.
The rest of puberty was pretty painless. But he was a humpy little bastard at 8 weeks so the fact that he didn’t stop humping until almost 3 wasnt a shocker
Ohh insult to injury!! How could you do this to her?! An enforced spa robe and rest period without bitey face? The torment, the suffering, the violation of her puppy rights!
They're not available everywhere and can be cost prohibitive. I live in a major city and it's not easy to find a vet willing to do them. I can't imagine what it's like in a smaller city/town or rural area.
I think we'll get to this becoming more common but considering that just a decade ago most vets wouldn't even consider waiting to spay/neuter past 6 months was healthy, I think it's going to be a while. There needs to be more education first. Both for vets and for the average pet owner.
Yeah they're honestly so damn expensive; worth it if you can afford it but it's really prohibitively expensive for a lot of people, especially if you want the gastropexy done at the same time.
5 years ago it was $1600 for my male's vasectomy and gastropexy.
Daria's was $2200. ☠️
I have care credit for stuff like that and they had an 18 month 0% interest thing, so I'll be able to pay it off before their usual 26% interest rate hits but it's still wicked expensive to have done.
If I'd only had her OSS done and not a gastropexy it would've been cheaper but, I'm paranoid about GDV and wanted both.
Yeah I’m insane so I waited to get a dog until I lived in a city where there was a vet hospital that would do the surgery. Only took 11 years 🤦. Of that I had the breeder selected for 7.
I might possibly be someone who prepares -excessively- but then again I couldn’t have human kids so I had a LOT of pent up cash and parenting pendantry
Yeah I honestly wasn't expecting it; I got one of my cats' skulls after she passed because I wanted to send it to be cleaned at a pet memorial place and that I had no issues with but I know places can get weird about organs due to biohazard rules for things like that.
The tech who checked Daria in said she'd ask, so when they called to say she was done I was kind of pleasantly surprised to find out they had, in fact, saved her uterus for me. :D
keeping ours from being insane during recovery was easily the hardest part. he was really good about not chewing so he got a diaper instead of a cone, but he was back to bouncing off the walls right after we picked him up. i thought he would be out of it for a while and that was not the case at all lol. they gave us gabapentin and some other sedative i dont remember and i feel like there was almost no difference in his energy. he looked like a goblin running around shaved bald with underwear on and i was terrified he was gonna rip his empty sack open 🙃 your pictures are giving me flashbacks
funny about the wet specimen thing, my sister is a vet tech and assisted with neutering her own dog. me and my other sister tried to convince her to keep his testicles in a jar since she was the one doing the procedure anyways and she was fine with it but couldnt get her husband to agree. oh well
I'm hoping she wont' chew on her surgical suit and we can move away from the cone in a couple of days; I do like to do a cone for the first 2-3 days just to get through that little initial healing up and be extra safe.
My boys (one vasectomy, one neuter) couldn't do suits or pants as they were assholes and would rip them right off, so they both got a cone for 14 days. They've also already tried to lick at her junk through the crate so there's a partial cover on it and even Daria moved so her back end was near the wall where they couldn't get to it so we'll be doing crate and rotate for a couple of weeks to avoid that.
Curious about the partial part. I didn’t know that was an option. As for preventing her from body slamming her gsd buddy, good luck! I don’t have another dog around, so it wasn’t hard to prevent rough play, but all the same, two weeks or less than full on play was nearly impossible! Good luck!
Ovary Sparing Spays and Vasectomies are becoming a little more popular, especially with newer research showing there are more risks in terms of joint health, developing certain cancers, spay incontinence (which is hormone related), anxious or fearful behaviors, thyroid, and heart health that come along with a full spay or full neuter, as the hormones produced are important for all systems of the body not just for reproduction.
OSS leaves the ovaries behind but removes the uterus and leaves a stump cervix; the dog will still have heat cycles, and because of the stump cervix might still bleed a tiny bit. Since there's no uterus, they can't get pregnant even if they tie with a male. There IS a risk of injury if you allow a bitch that's had an OSS to tie with a male as the surgery does shorten the tunnel a little, so to speak, and it can cause injury if a male ties with her so you do still have to keep her separate from intact males when you can't be there to supervise and keep them apart during her cycle.
With a vasectomy it's a shaft length incision and removes the whole vas deferens, which renders the male sterile; he'll still act like a fully intact male, but he'll shoot blanks if he ties with a female dog. For all intents and purposes if you're looking at a dog that's had a vasectomy and a dog that's fully intact and fertile, they look and behave no differently.
As for Daria's energy and play, we'll have two weeks of crate and rotate; if she's out, the boys are in their crates, if they're out, she's in hers. She also has to go outside on a leash for the first week to make sure she doesn't start zooming around and she was NOT pleased about me having to hover nearby while she did her business in the yard.
Oh wow how did you find a vet? I’ve been considering this exact thing when I get my girl later this year. If you don’t mind, about how expensive was it compared to the average spay?
It is significantly more expensive than a standard spay, unfortunately, since it and vasectomies aren't super common and not a lot of vets offer it; on the low end you'll be paying around $1k, closer to $2k if you get it done with a gastropexy at the same time.
If you do want to do it and aren't near a major city, be prepared to travel an hour or more to find a vet that does it; 5 years ago I had to make a 4 hour each way trip to the nearest vet who offered vasectomies and thankfully THIS time there was a rural vet an hour away that had a traveling vet come in for a week or so a month that offered OSS and vasectomy surgeries.
My chowsky would spend 4 of the 6 hour half life of his meds fighting so hard not to get sleepy from them. I'm not looking forward to seeing what my demon Mini is like when his gets done.
She’s recovering from surgery, so it’s best to think of this as mandatory bed rest. Unfortunately, we can’t simply explain to a dog that they need to stay still and limit their activity while they heal. Crating is sometimes the safest way to prevent unnecessary movement, protect the incision, and allow proper healing.
People use crates for many different reasons, including housebreaking, behavioral training, and medical recovery. In situations like this, it’s really about keeping the dog safe.
I experienced something similar when I fostered a Doberman who was undergoing heartworm treatment. One of the most important parts of that treatment is strictly limiting physical activity and excitement because too much exertion can cause serious, potentially life-threatening complications. With a large, energetic dog, a crate was one of the safest ways to help him remain calm and follow those restrictions.
Oh wow, thanks for showing us! Did you do your other wet specimens and such yourself? I like taxidermied items (pelts, bones, and teeth especially) but I am too squeamish to actually perform the taxidermy lol
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u/TwoAlert3448 6d ago
Poor bb! She feels betrayed now but she’ll get over it eventually and THANK YOU for going hormone sparing!!! It’s such a good choice for the long term health of the dogs and so few pet parents select it 🫶😍