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Undescended Testicle....

dawn said:
I didn't want to get involved in this, as I (like many on here) feel very strongly about neutering animals without due cause, and saying that an animal should be :rant:   'FIXED'  :rant: implies that something is wrong with the animal AND IN MOST CASES THERE ISN'T.  

FIXING is an euphemism for neutering which is a perfectly usable word in this context.

.

It is another bastardisation of the English language by the  :clown: Americans  :clown: .

 

 

[SIZE=14pt]If it aint broke don't FIX it.[/SIZE]

slig

IF a dog needs neutering (either sex) for a genuine medical condition that is OK. To have a dog (either sex) neutered for the convenience of the owner and/or the pockets of the vet concerned is definitely a no-no.

Click to expand...
Absolutely, and I get furious at the suggestion that because my dogs are entire I am somehow irresponsible. Just because my dogs are entire does not mean they get to be bred from, and they certainly NEVER produced unplanned litter. :rant:

Ariel, as far as the undescended testicle goes; I would leave the dog alone for a while, but watch for problems. There is a slightly increased chance of testicular cancer in the retained testicle, BUT considering that the chance of cancer in descended testicle is absolutely miniscule, the actual chance is still very small. Hypothetically speaking, if the chance is say 1 in 50 000 and you increase the chance by 100%, that sounds terrible but in fact only means 2 in 50 000. :) In any case testicular cancer occures in later life, so you can have it done say by the time he is 6, just for peace of mind. You can have it done if he needs a anasthetic for other reason for instance. In any case it is not an emmergency, you do not need to make a decision now. :thumbsup:
 
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Hello,

I've got the same decision to make with my 6 month old. His situation seems a bit complex because sometimes his are down and sometimes not....usually if he's being very naughty they are visiting, like five minutes ago when he I first tried to post. :teehee:

The links posted on complications do give me a lot to think about, and the rates of testicular cancer quoted are a lot better than what I had been told by vets and our breeder.

I've also met whippet owners who lost their boy under anaestehtic for castration; and another family who had pts their boy at 12 years due to metastes from testicular cancer...both heartbreaking losses and npt making my decision any easier.

Just to add more statistics, the link below is from a health survey of whippets, it's from November 2000, and some members probably participated, if there's an updated survey please let me know.

http://home.swipnet.se/whippetklubben/am_health.htm

In case the link doesn't work, the relevent details for me were:

*19% of male whippet pups have undescended testes.

*Total deaths from all cancers were 27 out of 149 i.e: around 18% across the board for both males and females, and testicular cancer was not mentioned specifically.

*Castration rates were also not reported.

* Rates of death between cancer and old age were very similar (27 vs 25), but age of death was not reported ....I'm wondering if the dogs with cancer died younger?

The following are 2 quotes from the article

"Causes of death. Eighty-four respondents reported on the deaths of 150 Whippets (76 females, 73 males). Of the 149 deaths, 115 dogs were euthanized, 18 were natural deaths, 14 were accidental and 3 were unknown type. The top ten causes of death reported were: cancer (27), old age(25), neurologic (20), trauma (19), heart problems (10), kidney (9), multiple causes(eight), autoimmune (6), back problems (6) and temperament (5). "

"Of the cancer deaths, 4 were liver cancer, 3 were hemangiosarcoma, 3 were lymphoma/lymphosarcoma and 2 were brain cancer. Some were unknown types and other types of cancers were reported less commonly."

:luck: Best wishes to the rest of the 19% who have this very tough decision to make. At the moment, I'm postponing the decision until my boy matures.

Michelle
 
We had a lovely whippet with one undescended testicle. It never caused him any trouble and he died at the ripe old age of 15 of totally unrelated problems. So thats my only experience with it.

It does sound like they are exagerrating just slightly to make you panic....

Good luck with your decisions :)
 
Eddie had his undecended & his decended ones removed last september...neither one of them bothered him but we felt as his racing career was over & he was never going to go to stud then he should have the operation.

I was only bothered about the undecended one being removed due to the possible health implications of leaving it there (the decended one didnt bother me) but it made sense to have them both removed while he was going under anaesthetic ...if he was racing/showing i would have left the operation till his career was over :) .
 
I still haven't made my decision about Lenny yet :wacko: but I have a couple of questions.

Does anybody know if there is some sort of procedure (ie. ultrasound) which a vet can peform to actually locate the testes in the body? Although thinking about it, I am guessing this would mean having an anaesthetic as keeping a whippet still is near impossible :lol: Just wondered anyway.

I have also heard that if you have a dog with fear issues, castrating them could actually make them worse due to lack of testosterone. Anyone know about this/seen any evidence of it?

Has anyone on here actually owned a dog which wasn't castrated which developed cancer (of undescended testicles)?
 
Seraphina said:
dawn said:
I didn't want to get involved in this, as I (like many on here) feel very strongly about neutering animals without due cause, and saying that an animal should be :rant:   'FIXED'  :rant: implies that something is wrong with the animal AND IN MOST CASES THERE ISN'T.  

FIXING is an euphemism for neutering which is a perfectly usable word in this context.

.

It is another bastardisation of the English language by the  :clown: Americans  :clown: .

 

 

[SIZE=14pt]If it aint broke don't FIX it.[/SIZE]

slig

IF a dog needs neutering (either sex) for a genuine medical condition that is OK. To have a dog (either sex) neutered for the convenience of the owner and/or the pockets of the vet concerned is definitely a no-no.

Click to expand...
Absolutely, and I get furious at the suggestion that because my dogs are entire I am somehow irresponsible. Just because my dogs are entire does not mean they get to be bred from, and they certainly NEVER produced unplanned litter. :rant:

Click to expand...

Totally agree with all the above!!
 
Quite agree Dawn. BTW. Nice looking group of lasses. Hope she enjoys herself. Cheers, Stephen
 
Whilst on this subject it would be interesting to know which lines of U.K. whippets are prone to producing dogs with only one or no testicles. Is this a problem with U.S. lines?. Perhaps private correspondence would be the best method of communication. We are looking forward to mating our bitch when she is next in season. She is a product of U.K. and U.S. lines. 19% of all males born seems a very high percentage. How can this defect be irradicated from the breed as I suppose no one in his/her right mind would use a dog with only one testicle or a known carrier of this fault?regards , Stephen
 
My dog had a huge op at a year old to remove the one that had not droped as it was located very high up near his kidney, but the vet insisted on removing the one that was ok at the same time.

I think it is less of a problem if you can feel them in the groin as you can keep a check on them. I would not rush to have the op done especially if the sometimes are down in the correct place
 
I didn't want to get involved in this, as I (like many on here) feel very strongly about neutering animals without due cause, and saying that an animal should be 'FIXED' implies that something is wrong with the animal AND IN MOST CASES THERE ISN'T.

FIXING is an euphemism for neutering which is a perfectly usable word in this context.

.

It is another bastardisation of the English language by the Americans .

If it aint broke don't FIX it.

slig

IF a dog needs neutering (either sex) for a genuine medical condition that is OK. To have a dog (either sex) neutered for the convenience of the owner and/or the pockets of the vet concerned is definitely a no-no.

I am NOT an "American" so don't call me one please. I am CANADIAN! I am simply asking a question which the poeple here have yet to reply to. I have not made any remark to say that any one person here is irresponsable, so please do not put words into my mouth that I have not said. I always look at all the research and ALL the reasons for anything before I take any opinion. I am simply trying to figure out why one of the MAJOR reasons for neutering/spaying animals in North America is not even considered over there. My reason for this is to see if there is something you do over there that we don't do and that could improve the lives of our pets.

And to play devil's advocate- ANY domestic pet regardless of how it is now, was bred by US and for our own purposes! We are their keepers and if they end up in a shelter and dead that is OUR fault, not theirs. We choose to bring them into our lives.

I do not S/N my animals out of convenience, I have carefully weighed each view and opinion and made my choice accordingly. I take offense at your implying that vets only recommend S/N to get money. This is simply NOT true. I know very many who make it their goal for the same reason I choose to have mine castrated; because they LOVE animals and it hurts them to know that so many die needlessly. Don't paint everyone with the same brush!

For those of you who chose to keep your animals intact that is your choice. I know that many if not all of you are wonderfull and loving dog owners. Unfourtunatly there are a lot of people out there that are not as careing. It is these people who spoil it for everyone.

It was just a question.

FoxyDog
 
I personally think it's the dog or bitch owners choice(shoot me now)

What I'm interested in is this, if it's necessary to remove one testicle why would you not want to remove the other :unsure: after all it would not be the done thing to breed from a monorchid dog according to all the threads about it, so why leave a dog with one,just curious this is a genuine question :)
 
stephen mason said:
Whilst on this subject it would be interesting to know which lines of U.K. whippets are prone to producing dogs with only one or no testicles. Is this a problem with U.S. lines?. Perhaps private correspondence would be the best method of communication. We are looking forward to mating our bitch when she is next in season. She is a product of U.K. and U.S. lines. 19% of all males born seems a very high percentage. How can this defect be irradicated from the breed as I suppose no one in his/her right mind would use a dog with only one testicle  or a known carrier of this fault?regards , Stephen
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The 19% is males who do not have their testicles in scrotum by 7 weeks (or something like that), that does not mean they do not have then at all, or that they never come down. I belive it is even worse in the USA. It is too difficult to establish how many Whippets never drop them down. And then there are those who had them down early, and then lost one or both (w00t) .
 
Both of my previous successive whippets had one undescended testicle neither of which was ever operated on. The first (Pip) lived to 13 although I think the testicle issue had some part to play in his illness since he would pee blood from time to time in his last year or so. The fact is though that 13 is not a bad age for a whippet anyway, so it's neither here nor there.

The last whippet (Merlin) lived to just 10, however I don't think his testicle issue had any part to play in his premature downfall, he got a liver problem and had a number of cancerous growths on his body, so I think he was just an unlucky chap in the end - poor ol' Merlie :(

Fortunately Monty is entire, so hopefully he won't have any testicle problems, although he may lose both of them if a little girlie whippet ever comes to live with us (but don't tell him that... :eek: )
 
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FoxyDog said:
I didn't want to get involved in this, as I (like many on here) feel very strongly about neutering animals without due cause, and saying that an animal should be  'FIXED'  implies that something is wrong with the animal AND IN MOST CASES THERE ISN'T.
FIXING is an euphemism for neutering which is a perfectly usable word in this context.

.

It is another bastardisation of the English language by the  Americans  .

If it aint broke don't FIX it.

slig

IF a dog needs neutering (either sex) for a genuine medical condition that is OK. To have a dog (either sex) neutered for the convenience of the owner and/or the pockets of the vet concerned is definitely a no-no.

I am NOT an "American" so don't call me one please.  I am CANADIAN!  I am simply asking a question which the poeple here have yet to reply to.  I have not made any remark to say that any one person here is irresponsable, so please do not put words into my mouth that I have not said.  I always look at all the research and ALL the reasons for anything before I take any opinion.  I am simply trying to figure out why one of the MAJOR reasons for neutering/spaying animals in North America is not even considered over there.  My reason for this is to see if there is something you do over there that we don't do and that could improve the lives of our pets. 

And to play devil's advocate-  ANY domestic pet regardless of how it is now, was bred by US and for our own purposes!  We are their keepers and if they end up in a shelter and dead that is OUR fault, not theirs.  We choose to bring them into our lives.

I do not S/N my animals out of convenience, I have carefully weighed each view and opinion and made my choice accordingly.  I take offense at your implying that vets only recommend S/N to get money.  This is simply NOT true.  I know very many who make it their goal for the same reason I choose to have mine castrated; because they LOVE animals and it hurts them to know that so many die needlessly.  Don't paint everyone with the same brush! 

For those of you who chose to keep your animals intact that is your choice.  I know that many if not all of you are wonderfull and loving dog owners.  Unfourtunatly there are a lot of people out there that are not as careing.  It is these people who spoil it for everyone. 

It was just a question. 

FoxyDog

Click to expand...
The trouble with your question is that you are aiming it at the wrong group of people!! I think the vast majority of dogs in rescue homes will be mongrels or products of puppy farms, not a lot that caring, responsible people (that I am sure most K9ers are) can do about. Certainly by rushing out and having all our dogs neutered is not going to have any impact on the number of dogs in rescue homes but it will, for sure, line the pockets of Vets up and down the country!!!!
 
*Lesley* said:
I personally think it's the dog or bitch owners choice(shoot me now)
What I'm interested in is this, if it's necessary to remove one testicle why would you not want to remove the other :unsure:   after all it would not be the done thing to breed from a monorchid dog according to all the threads about it, so why leave a dog with one,just curious this is a genuine question :)

Click to expand...

But people do, unfortunately. :rant: I think you will find that most larger Veterinary practices will operate under a code of ethics issued by the RVC and it would be deemed unethical to remove only one testicle from a cryptorchid for genetic rationale but I am sure there are one-man band Vets up and down the country who would be willing to perform this kind of surgery or even corrective surgery .......... which IMO is even worse!!!
 
dessie said:
*Lesley* said:
I personally think it's the dog or bitch owners choice(shoot me now)
What I'm interested in is this, if it's necessary to remove one testicle why would you not want to remove the other :unsure:   after all it would not be the done thing to breed from a monorchid dog according to all the threads about it, so why leave a dog with one,just curious this is a genuine question :)

Click to expand...

But people do, unfortunately. :rant: I think you will find that most larger Veterinary practices will operate under a code of ethics issued by the RVC and it would be deemed unethical to remove only one testicle from a cryptorchid for genetic rationale but I am sure there are one-man band Vets up and down the country who would be willing to perform this kind of surgery or even corrective surgery .......... which IMO is even worse!!!

Click to expand...

they are vets out there that would perform corrective surery for the right price.

my vet had a woman come to him with her monorchid dog,she wanted to show him and wanted the testicle brought down for that purpose,he refused and the woman wasnt happy but a few weeks later reported to the vet she had had the procedure done else where.
 
trish g said:
dessie said:
*Lesley* said:
I personally think it's the dog or bitch owners choice(shoot me now)
What I'm interested in is this, if it's necessary to remove one testicle why would you not want to remove the other :unsure:   after all it would not be the done thing to breed from a monorchid dog according to all the threads about it, so why leave a dog with one,just curious this is a genuine question :)

Click to expand...

But people do, unfortunately. :rant: I think you will find that most larger Veterinary practices will operate under a code of ethics issued by the RVC and it would be deemed unethical to remove only one testicle from a cryptorchid for genetic rationale but I am sure there are one-man band Vets up and down the country who would be willing to perform this kind of surgery or even corrective surgery .......... which IMO is even worse!!!

Click to expand...

they are vets out there that would perform corrective surery for the right price.

my vet had a woman come to him with her monorchid dog,she wanted to show him and wanted the testicle brought down for that purpose,he refused and the woman wasnt happy but a few weeks later reported to the vet she had had the procedure done else where.

Click to expand...
Trish, that is insaine!!! they'll be having there nose's "done" soon, when there a bit mis-shaped lol
 
ladydee said:
trish g said:
dessie said:
*Lesley* said:
I personally think it's the dog or bitch owners choice(shoot me now)
What I'm interested in is this, if it's necessary to remove one testicle why would you not want to remove the other :unsure:   after all it would not be the done thing to breed from a monorchid dog according to all the threads about it, so why leave a dog with one,just curious this is a genuine question :)

Click to expand...

But people do, unfortunately. :rant: I think you will find that most larger Veterinary practices will operate under a code of ethics issued by the RVC and it would be deemed unethical to remove only one testicle from a cryptorchid for genetic rationale but I am sure there are one-man band Vets up and down the country who would be willing to perform this kind of surgery or even corrective surgery .......... which IMO is even worse!!!

Click to expand...

they are vets out there that would perform corrective surery for the right price.

my vet had a woman come to him with her monorchid dog,she wanted to show him and wanted the testicle brought down for that purpose,he refused and the woman wasnt happy but a few weeks later reported to the vet she had had the procedure done else where.

Click to expand...
Trish, that is insaine!!! they'll be having there nose's "done" soon, when there a bit mis-shaped lol

Click to expand...
It is insane and, as I said on another thread, unethical and tantamount to fraud or cheating, if you like. People are putting dogs (not just Whippets, other breeds as well) through corrective surgery (testicles, teeth, eyes, hernias etc), not for medical reasons but to be able to show them and, in a lot of cases, use them for stud/breeding (which is even worse) but not be honest & open with the people who either use the dog at stud/buy puppies. It makes me extremely angry and I certainly do not find it a matter to be laughed about.
 
dessie said:
*Lesley* said:
I personally think it's the dog or bitch owners choice(shoot me now)
What I'm interested in is this, if it's necessary to remove one testicle why would you not want to remove the other :unsure:   after all it would not be the done thing to breed from a monorchid dog according to all the threads about it, so why leave a dog with one,just curious this is a genuine question :)

Click to expand...

But people do, unfortunately. :rant: I think you will find that most larger Veterinary practices will operate under a code of ethics issued by the RVC and it would be deemed unethical to remove only one testicle from a cryptorchid for genetic rationale but I am sure there are one-man band Vets up and down the country who would be willing to perform this kind of surgery or even corrective surgery .......... which IMO is even worse!!!

Click to expand...
Sorry I don't understand why it's wrong to have the retained testicle removed and the other one left. There are good reasons why a racing dog should have this kind of surgery done.

The retained testicle removed if it effects it's track performance.

Otherwise leave the descended testicle as the testosterone aids in healing. Some racers and vets also believe that castration decreases speed.

I'm afraid that I will never understand this idea that non castrated dogs will automatically be used for breeding. An operated on cryptorchid is even less likely to be bred from than an entire dog IMO.

What I don't understand is why so many people on here have cryptorchid show bred whippets. After all the males have to be entire in order to succeed in the ring, so I would have thought that they would be the stud dogs being used. Shouldn't the problem be less common than it appears to be from the posters on here?
 
dessie said:
It is insane and, as I said on another thread, unethical and tantamount to fraud or cheating, if you like.  People are putting dogs (not just Whippets, other breeds as well) through corrective surgery (testicles, teeth, eyes, hernias etc), not for medical reasons but to be able to show them and, in a lot of cases, use them for stud/breeding (which is even worse) but not be honest & open with the people who either use the dog at stud/buy puppies.  It makes me extremely angry and I certainly do not find it a matter to be laughed about.
Click to expand...
I agree with you Dessie.
 
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