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Well, it has been a minute since I posted! I don’t have that much to say for myself, other than that I’m still here? This month has not been my favourite month, but Delia helps significantly with that, and I’m okay, and everything will be okay. Hope that is true for all of you as well. <3
Anyway.
Delia got spayed at the beginning of the month, and it went well. If you’re new here, I explained briefly in this post that I chose not to spay Delia at 6 months. (I still haven’t finished putting together a page of links on the subject…one of these days!) This is because it is becoming increasingly evident through scientific research that the benefits of altering a dog before maturity are probably outweighed by the drawbacks of removing those hormones too early. This is still a field of active and ongoing study, but already there is much compelling evidence in favour of delaying the spay or neuter surgery.
Delia was a little over a year old and had gone through two heat cycles. I’m going to be honest here and say that I don’t think I waited as long as I should have. If I had it to do over again, I think I would feel better about waiting until 18 months, which is what her breeder had recommended. But…what’s done is done, and at least she went through two full heat cycles.
Anecdotal Example of Why You Should Wait
Here’s a small, one-dog study of why it matters. This was Delia immediately before her first heat:
She looks like a lanky little pre-teen, doesn’t she? And here she is immediately after her first heat:
A very subtle difference, but you can see that her topline has levelled out and her chest has dropped juuuuust slightly. Still wouldn’t have been the time to spay her though, as she was by no means done maturing.
Finally, here she is after her second heat. I got even worse at stacking her, so these pictures really do not do her any favours (her back doesn’t curve like that when she’s standing naturally) but at least you can kind of see how much deeper her chest got as compared to the previous photos, and how she overall just looks a lot more mature.
And here is a somewhat better picture to show that her back is actually level. It’s very hard to get a side-view of her standing naturally and not on uneven terrain. She’s not a show dog and I’m not a show handler, so this is what we have to work with.
Anyway, hopefully this kind of illustrates how much of a difference the hormones make if you don’t remove them too soon. If you go searching you can find more examples, and there are a few posts floating around that show the difference between littermates where one was spayed or neutered early and the other was allowed to mature. Lots to go research and think about.
Delia’s Spay
Instead of our regular vet, I decided to schedule Delia’s spay with a clinic that specialises in spay and neuter (they do everything else too, but spay/neuter is their bread and butter). They spay and neuter all the dogs for the rescue I fostered with, and I thought they did a really nice job on my foster dog. Her incision was remarkably small and neat compared to some others I have seen (although it did start to look ugly for a bit during the healing process, which is totally normal, by the way—although always double-check if you’re concerned.) And in general I feel like a place that specialises in something is usually going to be a good bet.
Delia was suspicious of my intentions before we even got in the car. Maybe because we never go somewhere before I’ve at least offered her breakfast. The fact that I asked her for all of her passwords, made her give me full Power of Attorney, and asked her if she had a will might have also tipped her off that something was up…
Being that Delia is a pandemic puppy, I’ve never been able to accompany her into the vet’s office before. They’ve always come to the car to get her and then brought her back to me. She never had any hesitancy about going with the friendly ladies who smelled like treats and other animals, even after she learned that they were probably going to jab her with needles.
So when we got to the clinic, I tried to call and let them know we were in the parking lot, but the phone was busy. Then I noticed people were going in. It’s so strange how after just a little over a year I was so accustomed to this new way of doing things. It felt extremely odd to be able to go inside with my dog!
Some Musings on Secure Attachment and Socialisation
After we went in and sat down, I realised that Delia had never waited in a vet’s office waiting room before, which I believe is the most stressful part of going to the vet for most dogs. And this waiting room was a little extra chaotic.
Because this clinic will spay dogs that are already in heat, there were not one but two females in heat, and a poor male bully mix was having a big ol’ cry about it. Delia did try to vocally reprimand him, which in turn set off an Aussie, and that was embarrassing, but to her credit, once I told her to hush, she did hush.
Once she was made aware that it was not her job to be the waiting room police, she settled down and just chilled, even though there were people loudly talking and cats and dogs and all sorts of noise. I was so inexpressibly proud of her.
I definitely didn’t do anything to prepare her to relax in such a setting—in fact, thanks to COVID this was the first time she had encountered anything remotely similar. But obviously genetics play a big role in temperament, and perhaps more important, her breeder really does a fantastic job of getting the potatoes to accept a variety of different stimuli and experiences by the time she sends them home.
And then I think it’s just very crucial to nurture a healthy, trusting bond once you get your puppy home. I feel like the human child psychology concept of secure attachment is a useful one. Basically, it has to do with a stable and reliable relationship with the caregiver that fosters the—in this case the puppy’s—confidence to explore and ability to regulate emotion. So for example, Delia is generally confident and approaches new situations with a default curiosity rather than fear. And because we have that secure attachment bond, if she is unsure or scared about something, she will look to me and trust me when I tell her that it’s okay. As with human children, a healthy relationship with the primary caregiver informs other relationships as well, so Delia is able to trust other humans too, not just me, and is confident and able to cope just fine when I am not around. So this is also very important to prevent separation anxiety.
In contrast, I think about Eleanor, my foster dog. Her early experiences in life did not include that secure attachment base. So by the time she came to me as an adolescent dog, she didn’t know how to form a healthy attachment. She glommed on first to my golden retriever and then, after being practically glued to him for a day or so, bonded very intensely to me—but, I came to realise, not in a healthy way. The incredibly close bond we developed did nothing to alleviate her extreme anxiety about everything, and she was able to draw no confidence from it. Despite their consistent efforts and the fact that she lived with them for months, she was never able to become comfortable with the rest of my family. She was not interested in interacting with other humans at all. In new situations, she had no desire to explore. Although she clung to me, she did not have that trust that would allow her to accept that a person or a situation was okay when I assured her that it was.
I’m certainly no expert in dog training or puppy socialisation, but I think especially when exposing the puppy to everything they will encounter in life in order to desensitise them is not an option (for example, during a pandemic!) building that secure attachment is hugely important. Yes, desensitise the puppy to everything you possibly can! But that healthy, trusting relationship will form sort of a safety net to fall back on whenever your dog encounters something you weren’t able to prepare him for. That’s just my unprofessional take on it, and it seems to have worked for us. Obviously it’s not the only factor at play, and it won’t be the answer in all circumstances.
Anyway!
They finally called me up to the counter. Delia couldn’t see the receptionist above the counter, and I don’t think the receptionist could see her either.
The receptionist asked me my name and then whether I was here with Cordelia. And then she said, “Hi Cordelia!”
At the sound of her name, Delia put her front paws up onto the counter so she could peek over it, and she smiled her most dazzling smile for the lady, who thought it was just about the most adorable and funny thing ever.
When I had to sign the papers about all the risks and such, my heart started to feel heavy. They took me into a room with a sofa where Delia and I would wait for a tech to come and get her. I patted my lap for her to come up so I could bury my nose in her fur and tell her I loved her. She obliged and then hopped back down, wanting to explore the room but unable to get far on her four foot leash.
I took a shaky breath as I looked at the box of tissues on a table and thought of families waiting in this room in what they knew would be their beloved dog’s final trip to the vet. I felt cold and I looked at Delia and morbidly thought about how anaesthesia is always a risk, and surgery is always a risk, and despite the fact that spays are carried out routinely, it is a pretty major and traumatic surgery. I willed those thoughts away as I reached out to pet her, because she was still so curious and unconcerned, and I did not want my anxiety to transfer to her.
The tech slid open the glass door, greeted Delia, and took her leash from me. She told me she would get her settled and be right back. Delia glanced back at me as they left the room, momentarily quizzical (“Oh, you’re not coming?”) but then happily following the tech.
I felt a little dazed as I walked out after the tech had come back sans Delia and told me I was free to go, reminding me to come back at 3:30. I cannot stress enough how unprepared I was for how empty and scared I would feel. I fancy myself a pretty matter-of-fact and rational person, not overly effusive or expressive of my feelings…but my goodness, I do love my dog.
It all went well, and when 3:30 rolled around I picked up my groggy and uncharacteristically grumpy-looking Delia. They told me she didn’t need a cone because while they observed her she had left her incision site alone. They are definitely the experts, but I nonetheless put a surgery suit on her when we got home.
I ended up taking it off soon after because she looked so uncomfortable, and she was so lethargic that she clearly wasn’t going to bother her incision. The next morning, she started licking it and so I put it on her and she wore it until it had healed up more and she was no longer messing with it.
The Road to Recovery
Convincing Delia that she needed to rest was not fun at all. She was spayed on Monday. They gave us pain meds to get us to Wednesday morning, which actually did nothing to chill her out anyway. By Friday, we had to compromise with an outing. I chose a short, gentle, on-leash stroll through a demonstration gardens. She had some good sniffs and was very happy.
The recommendation is a full fourteen days of rest, and I definitely advise sticking to that. The routine nature of spaying female dogs can make us forget what a major surgery it really is. If you have had or know someone who has had a full hysterectomy, think about it like that. And even once the soreness and the energy-drain of healing wears off and the dog feels fine (or, especially if they’re a working breed, they don’t feel fine but they just want to keep pushing through it), they are still at risk of busting their sutures open through too much activity. So be firm. Insist on that crate rest.
But full disclosure? We went back to (limited!) activity after a week. I am not saying that was a good idea or a responsible idea, and I don’t recommend you do that. But I’m an idiot and Delia convinced me she was fine and her incision was well on its way to being healed, so I gave in. We went for a short little ramble over a gentle, flat trail. Very fortunately, everything was fine. The fact that it was fine doesn’t mean that was a good decision. Don’t do what I did. Listen to your vet.
That’s really all that’s new. Otherwise we’ve just been inside a lot because it’s smoky from nearby fires and the air quality isn’t good. I don’t think I’ve talked about Delia’s AAC (Augmentative Alternative Communication) buttons on this blog, so I’ll have to talk about those soon, but she uses them constantly. As a corgi, she’s always had a lot to say, and now she has even more ways to say it. So that has been the best and worst decision I ever made, and if you want to know more, go follow @hunger4words on Instagram (if you don’t already) and read Christina Hunger’s amazing book How Stella Learned to Talk. As someone who loves dogs and linguistics, I’m just so fascinated by the complex and interesting ways Stella combines words, expresses thoughts creatively, and generally just uses language. It is very reminiscent of one of my all-time favourite books, Irene Pepperberg’s Alex and Me.
So, that’s just a small update. Don’t know how interesting it is to anyone, but there you go. If nothing else, similar to my post regarding how to deal with a female corgi in season, (although a lot less informational and more solely experiential) I hope relating my experience with Delia’s spay and recovery will be helpful to anyone else who is getting their corgi spayed soon. I think just reading someone’s experience can sometimes give a frame of reference of what to expect, which can alleviate some anxiety.
If you’re new here…then this post was probably supremely uninteresting to you, and I’m sorry for that! I feel a little silly saying what I was going to say, which is that if you enjoyed this post and would like to be notified of future posts, you can subscribe to my blog at the bottom of the page. But…you could do that! Or check out some of my other posts which might be more interesting.
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And have a lovely day.
