Nope. Been lots of cases of 10 yr+ dogs getting bred and pregnant. Plus the longer they wait the more likely the dog will be to develope cancers of the reproductive system or pyrometria, a life threatening infection of the uterus that will result in an emergency spay.

Lisa

Bad idea for the reasons Lisa mentioned. Pyometra is especially a concern for small breed dogs who have never been bred. And yes, they can and do get pregnant, but generally have a harder time surviving whelping. The only difference is that she may not have as regular heat cycles as before. But pregnancy, cancer (mammary especially), and pyometra are all very good reasons to spay her now rather than wait for an emergency that an older dog is less likely to survive.

There are hormonal changes that take place after a spay as well as hormonal changes that take place in the aging process such as fertility decline, and susceptibility to certain canine diseases of the uterus. However dogs do not go through human type menapause.counting on menapause in place of a spaying is not birth control means for a dog.

that poor dog.

The evidence that this owner is observing & that he is equating with menstrual flow is really almost exactly the opposite:

Dogs don't have a menstrual cycle like humans, where the body readies the uterus each month for conception.

If a human being does not conceive that month, the uterine lining & the unused egg are shed, creating the monthly flow of fluid.

The monthly flow means that there has been no conception.

The dog has a heat cycle or estrus cycle, in which she is sexually receptive during her fertile times *only*.

Her fluid flow indicates, not that no conception has occurred, but that she is sexually available & that conception is likely.

When I was little, my brother got a Chihuahua, & my mother refused to have her spayed, said it would make her fat, it wouldn't be good for her, etc etc.

My mother really just never spent money.

When Sheba was nearly 12 years old, she finally escaped & found herself, of all things, a Dacha-poo, a very nice dog about 3 times her size.

*Then* my mother hauled her to the vet, who gave Sheba an injection that was supposed to prevent pregnancy.

Sheba began to put on weight.

The vet said it was a false pregnancy, that the injection was 99% effective (*never* believe anybody who tells you anything is 99% effective, especially when the evidence of your own eyes contradicts the claim), & that, in any case, a 12-year-old dog who'd never had puppies was unlikely to conceive.

So he & my mother decided not to put her through the physical stress ($$$)of spaying at her advanced age.

She got bigger & bigger, & one night she went into labor.

This was before the days of emergency vet clinics, so it was the next morning before we could get her some help.

She labored all night long.

The vet did a Caesarian/spay operation, & Sheba had 2 huge puppies, which she doted on.

But the whole experience put a tremendous strain on her system, & she began to go downhill:

Kidney trouble, then kidney failure, then congestive heart failure.

My mother ignored it, wouldn't even talk about it.

By this time, I was 15 years old.

One day when my brother came home from school, I told him that he & I needed to take her to the vet & help her out of this world.

& we did.

She had not made it even a year after having the puppies.

Please encourage your neighbor to have his dog spayed.

I'm a veterinary technician and I just had to chime in on this old thread. Very timely for me, because we are scheduled to do a spay on a dog with pyometra tomorrow morning. The dog came in, sick, on Monday. She was too sick then for us to do surgery, so we started her on antibiotics for 48 hours beforehand. This is an 8-year-old dog that the owner "never got around to breeding".

The irony is, we did surgery to remove bladder stones about 6 months ago and strongly recommended spaying her at that time. The owner DECLINED!!

But no, dogs and cats do not have "estropause", menopause, or any other "pause" that can be counted on. In fact, I recall a case from about 15 years ago where we had a 12 year old Lab on our surgery table for an emergency C-section/spay. The owner "thought she was too old to get pregnant". Obviously she wasn't. We all hoped for the best, but unfortunately the end result was 5 orphaned puppies a week or so after surgery.

That dog needs to be spayed, "toot sweet"!!

Again, sorry for the old-thread "necro"!

megan_anne, this message is always timely,
& maybe especially so in the spring time.

Thanks for bringing it back up.

NOPE I have an 11 year old dog and she still has her heats and I was told do to her advanced age Spaying is NOT and option for her and I let her in my backyard to go to the bathroom as I do everyday and I went back to let her in saw a dog scurry out of my yard and I just found out MY dog has mile so no no menopause for dogs and age does not mean she can't have puppies. I dnt know where the dog came from or who it belongs to .