Fly's biopsy results

[SoloRiver]

Fly had minor surgery last Wednesday to remove a mammary lump that was just aft of her last nipple(s) on the right side. Nipple(s) because Fly has a teeny accessory set after what should be the last set, so that the last ones look like double-barrel nipples. Fly's a freak.

 

Anyway, the biopsy results said:

 

(1) mammary ductal cyst (benign)

(2) moderate lobular hyperplasia

(3) adenocarcinoma of mammary gland

 

(3) was described as a nonspecific low-grade malignancy; a small neoplasm near the cyst wall that was completely excised and had a low chance of reoccurral. The recommendation was simply to monitor her.

 

I am assuming this means I should not be very worried.

 

There is one concern I have. Fly is not spayed. I have no intention of breeding her, but she was almost four years old by the time I got her and was ready to spay her -- first I wanted to make sure she got along with Solo, and then she went into season. By the time I'd lived through that first season, I realized that dealing with Fly in season was not a very big deal, which I know is totally not the case with most other bitches. She remains happy, cheerful, and biddable when in heat, and I have no yard in which she could be left to get knocked up, and she is literally ALWAYS with me otherwise. (There are some benefits to living in a city apartment behind several sets of locked doors.) Because of all this, and because there are fewer health benefits to spaying after the first couple of seasons (other than eliminating the risks of pregnancy and pyo), I decided that all things being equal I'd rather not put her through the surgery and ended up not spaying her.

 

Now, I don't think my decision is what caused her tumor (if she'd been spayed when she was almost four it would have been too late to make a difference anyway), but what I wonder is whether spaying her now would make it less likely for any malignancy to return. I've done some journal searches and the evidence out there appears to be equivocal -- some researchers seem to think that eliminating that source of hormones makes cancer less likely to return, other researchers seem not to. I was wondering what you guys thought.

[Laura (Cady and Koda's mom)]

Can't answer your question, but I did want to chime in and say I'm glad the tumor was completely removable and not likely to return. Hopefully she will never have a recurrence either way you decide to go and will live a long healthy life with you and Solo.

[Rebecca, Irena Farm]

Whew.

 

I'm be interested in this issue also. It would be nice if we owners of working bitches had a definitive answer to this question and others on early vs. later sterilization. It can take a year or more of training and waiting on maturity to determine whether a particular dog is pet quality or working quality, and then another couple years of training and competition to sort the breedworthy dogs from the ones that are useful but not up to breeding standards.

[AK dog doc]

It is controversial, but my two bosses both feel that there are decreased risks of either getting other mammary tumors later, or of getting "bad" ones later, if the dog is spayed around the time the mammary tumors are detected and resected. This is based on a combined 50+ years of experience up here, where older unspayed females are relatively common (what with the zillions of sled dogs and all.) I have no numbers to back this up, but this is also my clinical impression.

 

Beyond that, you do have not only the risk of pyometra, but an *ever-increasing* risk of it. The older the dog is, the greater the chances. And, of course, there are the risks of ovarian and uterine cancer to consider as well.

 

In general you'd always prefer to spay a young healthy dog than an older sick one. We've had fatal pyo's, and even if not fatal, they are pretty steep on cost both to you and to the dog. I generally suggest to clients who are breeding that they spay once the dog's brood career is over. Everyone has to make this decision based on individual circumstances, though, so that's just FYI info. In general, you prefer to get the first breeding done between 2 and 4 years of age, since the risk of diffuculty with the pregnancy and whelp goes up if the FIRST pregnancy is after the age of four. Dogs who have had successful whelps before 4 can certainly do it later than that as well, with fewer risks than if they were a first timer; however, fertility begins to decline around 6 years of age in bitches and around 8 in dogs, so your chances drop along as time goes on.

 

Sorry I can't be more definitive.

[AK dog doc]

Oh - and I'm glad to hear that the histo from Fly's tumor came back as it did. You shouldn't have a recurrence of that one, but others could crop up. Given your meticulous nature and your tight bond with your dogs, I'm sure you'll notice immediately if one does. Any new one should be checked out... she could have 10 no-big-deal ones and one bad actor, but it'd be that one that gives you trouble.

[juliepoudrier]

AK Dog Doc,

Thanks for the information. AS the onwer of two unspayed working bitches (2.5 and 4 years old), I am also interested in this subject. It's entirely conceivable for a working bitch to be 4 years old before the owner has determined that it is indeed worthy of breeding (which is in part why my two are still intact).

 

J.

[AK dog doc]

Yeah, we get a number of sled dogs in that position, too - they may be a world-beater, but you aren't yet sure they are that good, so you keep the ovaries in case they are. And while we *ideally* like to see the first pregnancy before 4, there's ideal and then there's the real world. The thing with later pregnancies is that you just want to have the cash on hand for a middle-of-the-night emergency C-section, should it go that way. I'm sure you, and probably anyone else on these boards responsible enough to hold off breeding til they're sure the dog is worth it, would also be responsible enough to have the means to handle such an emergency if it arose. And it's not like a maiden 5 year old bitch is guaranteed a C-section. It's just that the risk goes up after four years old. That's the advantage of males, in one way - you can store semen and breed them after their fertillity has dropped away to nothing. Heck, if you store semen, you can breed them after they're dead, if you want to. We had a client achieve a healthy pregnancy - four pups - in a French bulldog last year with 23 year old semen. That was a stud dog that was YEARS in his grave, since Frenchies tend not to live a long time.

 

I fully understand the impulse to hold on to the reproductive equipment until you see what the dog is worth in work, and it seems perfectly reasonable in a responsible individual such as yourself. If you had an unsound dog, or one with CEA, or a poor temperament, or one clearly lacking talent (etc), you'd have spayed already. If the physical and temperamental soundness is all good or excellent and the dog shows potential, you sort of hate to lose those genetics - there are plenty of poorly-bred dogs in the world, and if you care about the breed it's only natural to want to preserve a pool of good-quality working-dog genetics. They do embryo-harvest in horses (although certain registries will not permit this, or even AI, and still register the foals). No idea how well it would work in dogs (all species not being the same), but it would be sure to be expensive.

[Kyrasmom]

My Kyra also had various adenocarcinomas removed, well, actually two and with the second the vet took her complete mammary chain. It was explained to me that it was a low grade tumor but I none the less opted for chemo after the second one was found.

 

After three years she developed bone cancer and had spots on her lungs...I would hate to frighten you as every case is/should be unique but do keep a close eye on her mammaries. Check her often....my vet recommended once a week. I thought we had treated a low grade tumor aggressively and I still ended up losing her, it was probably just the way it was supposed to go and I'm not sure what I could have done differently.

 

Kyra was also spayed late.

 

Maria