Neutering Your Pet
You are admitting your pet for an elective procedure known as an orchidectomy, commonly referred to as a neuter.  We recommend this for all male cats and dogs for many reasons.  The number one reason is prevention of unwanted kittens and puppies.  The United States euthanizes approximately 3-4 million cats and dogs every year.  Spaying and neutering helps control the unwanted pet population.  It also has long term health benefits.  This includes eliminating the possibility of testicular cancer.  It also, typically, eliminates spraying of male cats or marking behavior of dogs.  These behaviors can persist, however, due to other behavioral problems or the formation of a habit.  At that point neutering will not cure the problem, but it will help combined with behavior modification and other specific treatments, as needed.  It also helps decrease the aggression and a desire to roam, both of which can lead to to fighting and injury from other animals and injury from automobiles.  In dogs, it helps prevent benign prostatic hyperplasia (enlargement of the prostate due to hormonal influence), which can lead to changes causing infection and the possible inability to urinate, if not treated.  Both problems can be life threatening, requiring intense treatment to correct.

This surgery involves making an incision between the penis and the scrotal sack.  The testicle is then pushed through this opening, removing it from the scrotal sack.  The fat is then removed from the connective tissue and muscle enclosing the spermatic cord and artery and vein of the testicle.  Clamps, three, are then applied to this cord.  Suture material is tied in the area of the crushed tissue, once the clamps are removed.  These are called ligatures.  Two ties are placed on each testicle.  The tissue is then cut and the bundle with the ligatures returns to the inguinal area.  The cut tissues are then checked for excessive bleeding and if everything appears normal, the doctor then proceeds with closure.  The skin is sutured separately and these sutures are placed within the skin to discourage licking and chewing at the incision are post-operatively.

Even though this is a surgery performed regularly, it is still a surgery that causes pain.  As a result, we administer pain medication prior to performing any surgery; this lessens the pain in the long run.  We also administer a local anesthetic block to each testicle, this helps to decrease the amount of general anesthetic medication needed to perform the surgery.  Oral pain medication is sent home post surgery to continue to make your pet comfortable at home.  This provides comprehensive pain management and keeps our patients as comfortable as possible while recovering and healing at home.

Complications can occur with any surgical procedure.  While they are usually minor, they can also be extreme and even cause death (though this is very rare).  There is a risk of intra- and post-operative hemorrhage.  There is always some blood loss with surgery but it is usually not excessive.  There is a risk of the ligatures becoming lose, resulting in bleeding into the scrotum.  The risk of bleeding and ligatures slipping is increased if your pet is over one year of age and overweight.  Excessive bleeding occurs in a small number of cases and may require a return to the operating room to identify and stop the bleeding.  Other complications are: the risk of infection, suture reaction, fluid accumulation under the incision, blood clots, abnormal electrical activity of the heart (arrythmia), damage to adjacent organs, herniation of the bowel into the scrotum, dehiscence, and death.  Dehiscence is tearing of the suture through the skin leading to an open wound.  All of these are very rare occurrences, and by making pre-surgical bloodwork, IV fluids, ECG, and oxygen level monitoring mandatory we decrease the chance of these problems occurring as much as humanly possible.  Some of these complications can be treated medically but others may require additional surgery to correct.  If any abnormalities occur after surgery please call to inform us and we will schedule an appointment to have your pet rechecked.