Pretesting before spay and neuter

[greeneggsandham]

How many of you do a pre-test before you spay or neuter your dogs? My understanding it is just to see if the dog would be allergic to the anestisa. I will be getting all three of my Beagles done within the next few weeks. I don't remember ever doing it for my cats or my other dog that I had. They are all up to date on their shots.

 

[Jamie_Dog_Trainer]

The blood work I have had done prior to a surgery for my animals was a blood panel to check blood levels and appropriate enzymes. This was to make sure my animals could metabolize the drugs used durring surgery and for a general health check before they had their immune systems messed with by the operation. I only had this done a few times on my senior animals, I opt out for younger animals under the age of six, unless I have reason to think their is an issue.

Edit:to clear up my brain-flatulence

 

[lilcritters]

If I had a relativly healthy young dog I would not get bloodwork done and haven't even working at a vet clinic. Older dogs YES I would do so. Need to find out wether the kidneys and liver is working right, or if there are any hiden infections or anemia going on. EKG are very helpful too with older large breed dogs to check their heart. If you have one with a bad heart going under can be dangerous.

 

[Glenmar]

Quote:
I agree.

 

[greeneggsandham]

Thank you all for the replies. Huck is 10 months old and his mom and dad are 4 and 5 years old. Just over a year ago I had a full breeding exam and then some done on them and everything came back very good. I know when I called the vet to check on prices they did say it was optional.

 

[Godsgrl]

I read this as protesting! I wondered who was protesting, the owner or the pet?

 

[CityGirlintheCountry]

When I had my Lily spayed the vet offered the whole shebang. As always, I said to do what you feel is necessary. I'm not made of money, but I trust you. He did what I asked and ran a few tests, one of which tested for clotting. Thank heavens that he did! Unbeknownst to me, Lily had gotten into some rat poison. If he had started surgery she would have bled out then and there. Thankfully we caught it and were able to do a round of vitamin K, which fixed the problem. A few weeks later she was successfully spayed.

I say go with your gut and trust you vet to do what is needed (as long as you trust your vet). If you don't trust your vet then it is probably time to find a new vet.

Good luck!

 

[AinaWGSD]

Many vets, including the one I work for, no longer give you the option to skip preoperative bloodwork. It is not optional, it is mandatory at my clinic because the doctors don't want any surprises during the operation. The preoperative bloodwork won't tell you anything about "allergies," but it will tell you if your pet's kidneys and liver are able to process the anesthesia. It will usually also test for anemia. And while most healthy young animals will not have any problems, the vet I work for has found several young (we're talking 6 months or younger) animals with severe liver disease, enough so that anesthetizing them for any reason let alone a major surgery would be very dangerous. There was absolutely nothing about these pets that indicated they might possibly have a problem and the diagnosis was totally unexpected and out of the blue. Even in young adults, you can't tell how safe they are for anesthesia by an exam alone. My younger dog is only 5, and under my vet's old anesthetic protocol would not need mandatory bloodwork for a surgery, but routine preoperative bloodwork revealed that he has early renal insufficiency. He's still safe for anesthesia, but he does need a slightly different protocol than a dog his age that did not have any kidney issues.

Short answer, I would not do any anesthetic procedure, no matter how short or "routine" it is, without doing at least a basic blood chemistries first.

 

[redhen]

I dont. I bring my pets to the low cost spay/neuter shelter we now have in the city by us.
Never any problems so far....

 

[Jamie_Dog_Trainer]

I am having surgery on Thursday. They only bloodwork they are doing is checking blood count, and checking type in case I need to be transfused. I am not going to pay for my young animals to have that done unless I have to. The cost for the Vet blood panels they do run from $85-160. That is quite steep.