When to Spay or Neuter Your Vizsla

Based on the huge push for early spaying and neutering over the past few decades, when to spay or neuter your dog may seem like a straightforward answer. However, this is rarely the case.

Yes, spaying and neutering have tons of benefits when done early, such as preventing pregnancies (which can be dangerous for young dogs). However, there are also some negatives to spaying and neutering early.

There are two main fields of thought: spay or neuter your Vizsla early vs. doing surgery after they are fully grown. We’ll look at both approaches below.

Spaying and Neutering Your Vizsla Early

Often, vets will recommend that you spay or neuter your dog early. Often, the main benefit is to reduce the chance of pregnancy by fixing the dog before they even hit puberty. This completely eliminates the chance of early pregnancy.

Early pregnancy can negatively affect a female dog’s growth. When the dog is growing, the last thing she needs is to get pregnant. As you might imagine, trying to help a female dog grow correctly while caring for her unborn puppies is challenging. Dogs often develop nutritional deficiencies and end up with health problems later in life.

In a perfect world, we would all be able to prevent pregnancies by taking a few basic steps, such as keeping our females inside. However, we don’t live in a perfect world. Many females go in heat for the first time without showing any symptoms, so you may not even know they are in heat. Many females end up pregnant, and their owners don’t even remember them being in heat!

Unless your dog happens to have very obvious symptoms, it can be easy to miss the signs.

Males also hit puberty without their owners knowing. They may be more prone to wandering around, getting lost, and causing others to become pregnant. While males don’t have to carry the pregnancy, they do put others at risk by getting them pregnant.

However, spaying or neutering a dog early causes health issues. Vizslas are more likely to get cancer if they are spayed or neutered early. Dogs may also be more likely to get joint issues, as the reproductive hormones affect bone growth.

Spaying or neutering also prevents some health issues. Your dog cannot get certain types of infections or cancer if they no longer have those body parts.

Delayed Spaying and Neutering

More and more vets are recommending delayed spaying and neutering under the right circumstances. If a dog’s chance of getting pregnant is rather low, then delaying the procedure to prevent health issues may make sense.

We now know that spaying and neutering dogs early causes growth problems, and this tendency may be the reason more dogs end up with hip dysplasia. It’s mostly larger dogs that benefit from delaying these surgeries, which would include Vizslas.

In this case, waiting until the dog is at least 12 months old is often recommended, as this is when growth slows. However, some vets may recommend waiting even longer, depending on how big your particular dog is getting.

The larger the dog, the longer the dog takes to grow. Therefore, the longer spaying or neutering must be delayed.

Figuring out what’s best for your dog can be challenging. After all, there are pros and cons to both. We recommend talking with your vet and seriously looking at your living situation. It may make sense to wait if you can keep your female contained and away from males at all times. If your dog is going to be around a canine of the other gender regularly, it may be better to spay or neuter early.