Surgery

We offer a wide variety of surgical services including, but not limited to:

  • Elective spays and neuters

  • Mass removals, including diagnostic biopsies

  • Wound repair and abscess treatment

  • Bladder stone removal

  • Urgent procedures: abdominal exploration and foreign body removal, pyometra spay, c-sections, eye enucleation, and splenectomies

  • Amputation and limited orthopedic surgeries such as fracture repair (on a case-by-case basis)

Every patient receives a custom surgical, anesthetic, and pain management plan tailored to their needs. To help ensure the safety of our surgical patients under anesthesia, all patients receive continuous monitoring of blood pressure, their heart electrical activity (ECG), how well their blood is transporting oxygen (pulse-oxygenation), respiratory rate, and body temperature. An IV catheter is placed and intravenous fluids administered throughout their surgery. Our patients receive medication before their procedures to prevent nausea. We also assess bloodwork prior to any anesthetic procedures to assess the health of the patient’s internal organs, as some diseases can make anesthesia much more risky for the pet.

When Should You Spay or Neuter Your Pet?

While we wish there was a simple all-encompassing answer, there is not. For cats, we continue to recommend spaying or neutering take place around 5 to 6 months of age. Any later and you may have to withstand the yowling and needy behaviors of an in-heat female, or the urine marking of an intact tom cat.

For smaller-breed dogs (less than 50 pounds adult weight) we recommend spaying or neutering around 5 or 6 months of age. For female dogs this is prior to the first heat cycle taking place.

For larger-breed dogs (expected adult weight greater than 50 pounds) there is much debate as to the most appropriate age. Some of the reproductive hormones play a role in the skeletal development, especially the long bones of large-breed dogs. As such, large-breed dogs who are spayed or neutered before they reach their adult size (about 1 year of age) may experience excessive long-bone growth which could contribute to orthopedic issues as they get older. This is not true for every large-breed dog, and certainly there are other factors at play such as nutrition, genetics, and lifestyle.

Let’s keep in mind some of the risks of delayed spaying and neutering too (done at 1 year of age or later):

  1. In females the risk of mammary cancer later in life increases exponentially with every heat cycle they experience.

  2. Unwanted puppies or kittens.

  3. Infection of the uterus, called pyometritis, which is a hormone-driven disease.

  4. Roaming behaviors (especially males seeking mates) which can lead to getting lost, being hit by cars, and other injuries.

  5. Other unwanted behaviors, such as territorial aggression and urine marking.

We are here to help you make the decision about when is the best time to spay and neuter your large-breed dog.