3 ways to control your dog's reproduction

Avoiding mating, drug treatments and surgery are the main methods to address reproductive control and put an end to the scourge of being the European country with the highest rate of abandonment.

If we ask ourselves what are the reasons that lead a presumed rational to cross his dog, we will find various reasons, among which we find:

• The false statement that spreads from mouth to mouth like wildfire: “it is good that the dog has a litter, at least once in her life”.
• If the bitch has “X” puppies, and I sell them at “Y” price, I will make a profit = “X” multiplied by “Y”
• I want to stay with a son of my dog…
• All my friends and family want a litter of my dog.

These are the most common “reasons” to justify the reproduction of an animal that, for obvious reasons of overpopulation, does not need to reproduce to maintain its species, a fundamental reason for any animal species to cope with reproduction.

As we can see, from basing the mount on an absolute falsehood , commercial interest above respect for the animal, the absurd idea that a puppy will bear tremendous similarities to its parent, or excessive confidence in those who want a puppy, but, the moment of truth, they do not appear, nor are they expected…

And as we said at the beginning, there are three main ways to avoid the unnecessary population explosion, the open door to abandonment:

1. Avoid mounting

To prevent the bitch from being mounted without using either of the two methods that we will comment on below, we must bear in mind that our information on the reproductive phases, and the attention given to the animal when it is in heat, must be more than correct, without cracks.

All bitches have their own heat calendar , the time that elapses between reproductive periods of a small animal is not the same as in the case of a large female, so it is necessary to have a clear calendar of our dog in particular: if she is in heat every five months, that is her pattern, if it is once a year, that is her pattern , and we will have to adapt to her to control her going abroad in such a “risky” period.

A female in heat is an olfactory lure (up to several kilometers away) for a male; The dogs that detect this call of nature will try to go to the emitting point and complete a mount, just as their instinct indicates.

To avoid this, we must always be controlling our bitch, and avoiding the approach of the male.

And it is also very important to know that effective mating generally occurs when the bitch is finishing bleeding or does not present it.

Too many people still believe that the moment of greatest risk is when they come into heat (abundant spotting), a serious mistake.

2. Pharmacological treatments

It is another way to control the heat since there are drugs specifically designed to cancel the heat and prevent reproduction.

Unfortunately, these treatments do not usually adapt too much to the individual characteristics of each animal, so it is possible that there are unwanted side effects (uterus infections, ovarian cysts…) in certain specimens.

If you want to opt for the pharmacological route, it is more than convenient to put yourself in the hands of a veterinarian specialized in reproduction , who, after an assessment of the animal, issues a “ personalised ” preventive treatment.

3. Surgery

It is a definitive method, and although in some cases it could be reversible, it is very rare that it is intended to reactivate reproductive capacity in bitches that have undergone surgery.

There are several possibilities:

• Those that allow hormonal activity to exist and prevent reproductive capacity; among these we have:
  • Tubal ligation: the surgery consists of tying (“tying off”) the course of the tubes at two points and cutting between the ligatures. With this method it is impossible for the ovules and the spermatozoa to meet, we could say that “the road is definitely closed”
  • Hysterectomy: we surgically remove the fallopian tubes and uterus; the ovaries remain, the bitch is jealous and produces and releases eggs, but even if she mounts, the sperm do not arrive. Here it is not that the road “is closed”, we have “removed the road”
• Those that prevent hormonal and reproductive activity:
  • Ovariohysterectomy : there are more options in this section, but this is the most used, the most appropriate and the first choice.
    We surgically remove the ovaries, fallopian tubes, and uterus. No eggs are formed, there is no heat, “we remove the road”… With this surgical method we free the animal from problems and the owner from scares. We avoid unwanted litters and abandonment.