# Laparoscopic Spay vs Traditional Spay



## Petra's Dad (Jan 6, 2020)

Hello everyone, my girl is approaching the time for her spay (she is 2 years old). I'll be booking it after her next heat, which is due in about a month. My vet has mentioned that they offer a laparoscopic spay (removing the ovaries only). Apparently it is less invasive, so less recovery time, but costs more (the cost is irrelevant to me if it actually will help her). I am not in a large city so I would not expect my vet to necessarily have done a ton of these so the level of their competence also plays into my decision. I imagine it is not near as popular of an option as a normal spay due to the cost. The regular spay is around $400 and the laparoscopic is around $700. The vet mentioned to my wife that they had a GSD who had a traditional spay, ran to bark at a mailman and her incision split open leading to her intestines falling out and death. Horrible!

Does anyone have any experience with this kind of spay? What opinions or thoughts do you have? 

I am tempted to try it, but I don't want to jeopardize anything with my girl.

On a side note, my wife is curious about getting her stomach tacked at the same time to prevent torsion from bloat. I have never done this with a GSD I have owned in the past and it feels unnecessary to me. Am I wrong in thinking this? My girl has a deep chest for a female.


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## Cassidy's Mom (Mar 30, 2003)

All our previous females have had traditional spays, but Cava will be having a laparoscopic spay. I like that it's less invasive, and has a much faster recovery time. 

She will also be having a gastropexy which is the surgery your wife is asking about. It's only unnecessary if your dog never bloats. I have had a dog bloat, Keefer did at 7:30 on a Sunday evening a few days before his 12th birthday. If I hadn't been home at the time, (my husband could see something was wrong but wouldn't have recognized it as a life or death situation) if I hadn't realized that it was likely bloat, (are you and everyone in your household familiar with the signs?) and if we didn't live less than 5 miles from an emergency vet and were in the car on our way within minutes, he would have died a horrible, painful death. Instead, emergency surgery saved his life. He bounced back quickly and was around for another year and 8 months. 

I will never take that chance again, so Cava will be having a pexy done at the same time as her spay.


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## wolfy dog (Aug 1, 2012)

My vet said that the stump that's left of the uterus can still develop pyometra. It's the reason I won't consider this spay.


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## Sabre's Mom (Jul 27, 2018)

I had a laparoscopic spay & pexy done on my female last January. She was just over 4 years old at the time. I preferred that it was less invasive than traditional surgery. I did choose to go to a specialist for this.

My biggest difficulty was trying to restrict my dogs activity for 2 weeks. Sedatives helped, she had minimal discomfort, and she healed fine.

Hope everything goes well for you.


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## Petra's Dad (Jan 6, 2020)

Cassidy's Mom said:


> (are you and everyone in your household familiar with the signs?)


Yes, we are familiar with bloat symptoms. There is not any emergency vets located within 45 minutes of us unfortunately.


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## Cassidy's Mom (Mar 30, 2003)

Petra's Dad said:


> There is not any emergency vets located within 45 minutes of us unfortunately.


That might not give you enough time unless you realized what was happening right away and left immediately. Maybe not even then, if the vet didn't have a surgical team on hand. Consider that it could happen when nobody is home. I know of a dog that bloated while her owner was at work, and even though she rushed the dog to the vet when she got home and found her in distress, the dog did not survive the surgery. Consider that it could happen during the night while you're sleeping. I know of dogs that bloated in the middle of the night. We were lucky, all the odds were in our favor, but even though Keefer did great, the surgery cost us about $6800. I know that not everyone can afford that, no matter how much they love their dogs. IMO, it's well worth having a preventative pexy done.


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