All of this was the result of Jagger having his testicles cut off at 5 months of age – the vet highly recommended it. Was all this information given before they desexed? Of course not. If a vet told you all this, would you still go through with spay and neuter? Or would you ask about vasectomy or tubal ligation?
When I met the now ex, her son owned a 1 year old pure Miniature Pinscher that she basically adopted. Her sons dog, but he didn’t care about it. He spent far too much time in a crate and rarely got out of the house. He wasn’t around other dogs – and neutered at 5 months. After meeting him, I fell in love with the breed.
Jagger had some medical issues. When I first met him, he was itchy and suffering alopecia – hair loss. Poor dog looked like he had been attacked by a pack of rabid moths. Over the next 2 years, he got worse and it came with near constant ear infections, more fur loss, he was eventually ripping himself to pieces. Vets were at a loss and all they offered was different foods – the food trials and the medications. The ex spent alot of money on this dog. Tried near every allergy med, nothing worked. Tried all the reasonable things found online, nothing worked. Switched him to raw, that offered some relief, but still he wasn’t in good shape.
I had been researching possible diagnostics for quite a while out of frustration and one of the things on the list was hypothyroidism. And I had asked vets about hypothyroidism, but they all said it was overdiagnosed, it’s not hypothroidism. They actually told me it was a waste of money to pull a thyroid test, fought me on it.
One day at a dog park, Jagger suddenly turned somewhat aggressive, he wanted nothing to do with dogs or people. If a dog came in, and wouldn’t back away he would put on full display – which is pretty impressive in the minpin. I knew right then that his thyroid was a mess. And vets didn’t want to run the tests. I’m on my own. All the vets would offer was other pills – or steroids. I’ll talk steroids later.
A friend is hypo and had a script of synthroid 75 mcg that they never used, so hey, lets put him on a trial – outside a vets advice. Yeah, I was scared, but no other options. It’s not going to hurt him. Gave him half twice a day and within 24 hours we started seeing changes. Within a week, he was a new dog. No more scratching, ear infections cleared up. Brought him to the vet, demanded a full thyroid panel due to all the symptoms. Instead he ran a T4 on a senior panel. It was borderline low. Even after I’ve been feeding him synthroid for a week, it was still borderline low. He declared Jagger to be not hypo and proceeded to write a prescription for prednisone that would likely have killed him. Bear this in mind – we are giving him Synthroid and it’s borderline low. We got a problem. I was livid.
Off to a holistic vet for a change. I was keeping a basic diary of any symptoms oddities and she read them all. I explained that he was on Synthroid for the last few week out of desperation and she agreed, the full panel need to be run. Told us to keep him on the same dose til the results come back. Sure enough, taking the synthroid in his system into consideration, he was pretty hypo. She worked with us to balance the dose, and life goes on. He ended up taking 150 mcg of synthroid twice a day. Holistic integrative vets are awesome.
I will never work with another western vet for as long as I live – it gets better. I took Jagger back to the vet that ran the T4 on a senior panel, and showed him the blood results. He offered a refund, didn’t know what to say. I didn’t leave the results with him. I was having a beer when the call came in – this is the head vet at the clinic. She went on about she sent the T4 blood result around to other vets and they said the same – the dog is not hypothyroid. Lets just say she got a stiff talking to, I had the results of his TSH, T4, T3, Free T3, cortisol etc in my hands and I read them off. She didn’t know what to say – she didn’t call me to discuss the full panel that was done, she decided to run with her results. Over the years, all we got was some other type of food and “here’s my opinion, now pay me”. And they fought with me on blood tests of all things. The worst of it was, they all offered steroids like candy but I refused. The holistic vet said that steroids further suppress the thyroid and the recommended dose could have killed him.
Dogs need their balls folks. “But they won’t get cancer Yay”.
Jagger was neutered at 5 months of age and that is what put him on that bad path. When you neuter a dog, you’re removing the testicles completely along with the dogs natural ability to create testosterone. Dogs need testosterone to go through puberty. The bone plates don’t close on time and you will end up with a bigger dog – this can create joint injuries down the road.
Removing the testosterone directly impacts the endocrine system too. The thyroid becomes suppressed and can put the dog into a hypothyroid condition, and yes, it goes alot deeper than that. The only other organ in the body that can produce small amounts of sex hormones are the adrenal glands. Cutting the testicles off can light a fire under the adrenals. When the adrenals become exhausted – that is called “Cushings”. See how all this works?
It broke my heart watching Jagger suffer and we were helpless to help him. We tried everything and then some. And I shudder to think how many dogs are suffering severe allergies, are on a merry go round of medications and food – and have never been properly tested. A hypothyroid condition can mimic allergies to a T – and then some. I’ve heard of dogs getting bobble head. Jagger would freeze in place for 10 to 20 seconds at a time – I know now it’s called tragic expression. Other dogs can get long lasting erections. Hypothyroidism can present with one symptom or 10. There really isn’t much rhyme or reason.
But at least they won’t get testicular cancer right?
Spaying a dog to prevent mammary tumors or cancer is a myth. Both spayed and unspayed dogs get them equally – so that excuse is out the window. And by the way, spaying a female removes the uterus and the ovaries – it’s surgical menopause. They can suffer the same.