Desexing

At The Causeway Veterinary Clinic we recommend desexing your pet at 5-6 months of age. This minimizes the anaesthetic risk while also gaining the benefits from early desexing.

Why Should You Get Your DOG Desexed?

If you don’t want your puppy for breeding there is no reason NOT to desex your pet. There is a common misconception that a litter will improve your pets temperament, this is simply not true! In fact early desexing offers several advantages.

Castrating a male dog eliminates hormone driven wondering as undesexed dogs often escape from their backyards (no matter how high the fence – where there is a will there is a way) in search of a bitch on heat. Desexing also reduces the dog’s desire to scent mark or inappropriately urinate on objects.

Aggression and other dominance behaviours are also often reduced by castration. A significant reduction in the incidence of prostatic disease (fairly common in undesexed dogs) is also noted in dogs once the testosterone is removed. Testicular cancer is obviously prevented by the removal of the testicular tissue.

Speying a female dog prior to her first heat almost eliminates the risk of mammary cancer (breast cancer) later on in life. The desexing surgery removes the uterus and ovaries and thus prevents cancer of these organs.

When a bitch is on heat, like a male dog, they are driven to escape and wander (even from a secure back yard). Females on heat urinate more than normal to leave their scent in the surrounding environment and this can attract male dogs from miles away. Like males, female undesexed dogs have an increased incidence of aggression particularly when on heat and even during pregnancy.

Inevitably if a bitch is left undesexed she will develop a condition called a pyometra. Pyometra is the term used to describe a puss-filled uterus. Treatment of this condition is expensive, requires immediate surgery and if left untreated your pet will die. For this reason alone it is imperative that all female dogs are desexed!

Why Should You Get Your CAT Desexed?

Cats reach puberty very early. Male cats that are not desexed will often spray, have strong smelling urine and get into fights.

Female cats are on-heat almost consistently until they are mated. Their behaviour can almost be described as crazed, they call, climb, and escape! With a gestation period of 63 days cats can often be in kitten again before their kittens are weaned.

Cat numbers can escalate considerably in a very short period of time so for population control alone all cats should be desexed unless being used in a controlled breeding situation.

A Guide to help You & Your Pet through the Desexing Procedure

At The Causeway Veterinary Clinic, desexing surgeries are undertaken each weekday i.e. Monday to Friday. Patients are admitted at 8.30am on the day of their surgery with discharge generally occurring after 4pm on the same day that the procedure was performed.

Patient Care Prior to Surgery: 

On the evening prior to surgery your pet should be given his/her dinner no later than 6pm (with the food removed should they choose not to eat it). It is advised that you confine your pet to a secure environment prior to surgery to ensure that they have no access to food at all. It is amazing what can be found in the back yard when you don’t want them to eat anything! Access to water is perfectly ok, it is only solid food that should be restricted.

Admission:

Routine admission for desexings occurs at 8.30am on the day of surgery. We understand people are extremely busy so if this does not suit your schedule please give us a call to see if we can come up with a solution that will suit your particular situation.
At the time of admission you will be asked to fill in a surgery admission and consent form. This form is similar to forms you may fill in prior to going into hospital yourself. It gives us your up to date contact details and any important information about your pet that may be relevant at the time of surgery as well as giving you the opportunity to note any additional requests that you may have on the day while your pet is under anaesthesia.
A thorough physical exam is undertaken after admission to make sure there is no reason why your pet shouldn’t have an anaesthetic – we all know our pets are good at hiding when they are unwell.

Preanaesthetic Bloods:

A number of illnesses can go undetected during a physical examination such as juvenile liver and kidney disease and therefore no anaesthetic is completely without some risk. For this reason our staff may discuss preanaesthetic bloods at the time of admission with the aim of minimising this risk.

Intravenous Fluids:

At The Causeway Veterinary Clinic we recommend intravenous fluid therapy for any surgical case as it helps to counteract fluid loss and maintain normal blood pressure. It also helps to process the anaesthetic through the liver and kidneys thus minimising anaesthetic risk.
Having intravenous fluids connected to your pet also provides a direct route for administering emergency treatments should the need arise. Even for young healthy patients intravenous fluid therapy provides added peace of mind.

The Anaesthetic: 

At The Causeway Veterinary Clinic we use the latest anaesthetic agents, delivery systems and monitoring equipment available. Your pets anaesthetic will be administered by one of our highly experienced veterinarians. At the time of admission your pet will be sedated to reduce stress prior to the surgery, aid in a smoother induction, help with pain management and aid in patient recovery also.

After sedation patients are induced with an anaesthetic called Alfaxan, one of the safest injectable anaesthetic agents available

All patients are intubated and maintained on oxygen and a gaseous anaesthetic agent called Isoflurane as used in human hospitals.

The short acting nature of Alfaxan in combination with the high grade gaseous anaesthetic agent allow rapid anaesthetic recovery meaning that most pets will be wide awake and up and about by the time they are ready to go home in the afternoon.

Our surgical suite and recovery wards are heated for added comfort but most importantly to ensure that your pets body temperature is maintained at the optimum temperature at all times.

You can be assured that our level of care and monitoring protocols help us maintain extremely high levels of anaesthetic safety for your pet. However like humans it is impossible to predict how any given individual will react to general anaesthesia and therefore your family member will be individually monitored from admission to discharge to ensure the highest standard of patient care is maintained during their stay at the Causeway Veterinary Clinic

Pain Relief: 

Adequate pain relief has been clinically proven to speed up the surgical recovery phase and healing process. It also helps to reduce inflammation, swelling and irritation associated with wounds and stitches and minimises the stress associated with recovery. We take extra care to ensure your pet’s surgical procedure is as pain free as possible.

All our patients receive a pre-operative pain relief injection as part of their pre-med to ensure that the pain relieving effect starts well before they have their surgery. Furthermore all animals receive an additional anti-inflammatory pain relief injection post operatively to aid in surgical recovery. Owners may also be given the option additional pain relief to make their pet more comfortable during the recovery period.

The Surgical Procedure: 

One of our highly experienced Veterinarians will surgically desex your pet. In the case of a female dog or cat a complete ovario -hysterectomy will be performed. Likewise both testicles will be removed from a male dog and cat.

Removal of all reproductive tissue is important not only to prevent your pet from reproducing but to ensure that all hormonal influence is removed. As it is these strong male and female hormones that are so often linked to bad habits in our pets!

Surgical Aftercare: 

At the time that your pet is discharged from The Causeway Veterinary Clinic general aftercare instructions will be provided and discussed. It is important that these are followed to ensure the best and most speedy recovery for your pet.

Should you have any concerns (no matter how small) during your pet’s recovery it is important that you contact the clinic so that one of our caring team can help you and your pet!