how common to lose puppy from spaying?

[millerra]

I got really sad news from a friend. She and her mom lost their puppy from heart failure after spaying surgery. They are devastated and feel terribly guilty. I feel so bad for them. She was their princess.

I know that every surgery carries some risk, but to be honest, I’ve never been worried about spaying/neutering surgery. How common is it to have either significant complications or death? I had troubles finding statistics on the web and many answers about the dangers were rather cavalier and trivialized the concerns. To my friend, there is nothing trivial about the loss…

[Casey09]

Do you know if the vet feels the puppy had some type of heart condition going into the procedure?
I don’t know the statistics on how common it is, but I can imagine that it would be terribly sad.

[millerra]

The post-loss was “it must have been a heart defect” but prior to that, the pup was considered healthy…

[Casey09]

Years ago, I asked a breeder about a congenital heart defect common in a breed of dog and whether testing puppies was recommended. She said something like that if the puppies were ear cropped, then it was unlikely that they had the defect because they wouldn’t otherwise survive the surgery. I am not a vet, but because of that I would be inclined to think that the puppy may have had an undiagnosed heart defect that the anesthesia was too much for.

[Jhein12]

My friend’s puppy almost died during a spay surgery. My understanding is that it is more common with smaller puppies. In my opinion it is best to wait until the dog has matured to spay.

[HPFarmette]

Vet techs chime in…I have been told that the management of anaesthesia can be very tricky. IME, that was the issue when we would lose one at the shelter I worked at (not as a vet tech though). Fortunately in the shelter the only ones left to grieve were us, not a family, as long as the animal had not already been adopted…

[Callista17]

Any anesthesia can be risky, but that’s normally why you do bloodwork ahead of time, to try to catch any defects/concerns beforehand. I am sure a lot of testing/diagnostics could be done ahead of time, but that costs money. Spays are major surgery. Yes, they are done daily, young pups usually bounce back quickly, but…it is a major surgery, I think some people forget.
I do believe spays and neuters are so common though, I have heard from vets about vet techs being very laid back and not watching closely.
I have seen some animals start not doing well, and oxygen is turned on, as long as someone was watching closely.
Sorry for your friends loss.

[horsenut_8700]

ANY anesthesia procedure carries risks. Was there presurgical bloodwork performed? Was the patient appropriately monitored by an experienced technician? In my opinion, it is more likely that the anesthesia or recovery periods were not appropriately monitored if there was no indication of a preexisting condition that would make anesthesia dangerous. If it were my dog I would have an independent necropsy done.

[GoodTimes]

It was likely a heart defect. Blood work won’t diagnose a structural abnormality, unfortunately only an echo or more invasive imaging can pick up on that. Because of the rarity of congenital heart disease to begin with, and then the further unlikelihood of it being serious enough to be fatal, it’s not practical (not to mention it’s expensive) to image every dog out there before a spay or neuter. You could request it, but where does it end?
We don’t even go to those lengths in people.
I feel for your friends, an unsuspected loss if often much harder to deal with.

[csaper58]

@millerra

I got really sad news from a friend. She and her mom lost their puppy from heart failure after spaying surgery. They are devastated and feel terribly guilty. I feel so bad for them. She was their princess.

I know that every surgery carries some risk, but to be honest, I’ve never been worried about spaying/neutering surgery. How common is it to have either significant complications or death? I had troubles finding statistics on the web and many answers about the dangers were rather cavalier and trivialized the concerns. To my friend, there is nothing trivial about the loss…

You call this dog a puppy, but can you tell us how old the dog was?

Was pre-op blood work and a physical exam done?

I know that some of the ‘cost saving’ inexpensive spay/neuter clinics will forgo the pre-op work up to make these surgeries more affordable.

There are also instances where heart disease, that has not become evident in a very young puppy, can negatively impact surgery out comes.

My condolences to your friends on the loss of their pet.

[millerra]

puppy was about 9 months of age…

[cutter99]

I lost a puppy almost 20 years ago when I took him to have him neutered. He was given ketamine as an induction agent, and immediately went into cardiac arrest. Ketamine is very commonly used for this purpose, and the vet performing the procedure had never had this happen before in 33 years of practice. He felt the puppy either had an allergic reaction to the ketamine or had a heart defect. I had been a small animal vet tech, and while this was shocking, it is not unheard of.

I actually just had a discussion about this with my blacksmith this afternoon. People forget that any foreign substance in any body can cause a lethal reaction. While we don’t like to think about it, we should never forget that bodies are fragile.

[Houndhill]

I have personally known IWs to die during or right after spay surgery- they have bled out DIC (not due to vonW) or had Malignant Hyperthermia.

[vxf111]

@Casey09

Years ago, I asked a breeder about a congenital heart defect common in a breed of dog and whether testing puppies was recommended. She said something like that if the puppies were ear cropped, then it was unlikely that they had the defect because they wouldn’t otherwise survive the surgery. I am not a vet, but because of that I would be inclined to think that the puppy may have had an undiagnosed heart defect that the anesthesia was too much for.

I don’t think that was very responsible advice. Heart conditions can develop over time and even if they exist, not every application of anesthesia is going to cause a complication. That’s, IMHO, a fairly ineffective way of determining if a dog has a heart condition (reasoning that it made it through anesthesia once so it must not).

OP I am sorry for your friend. It is not common but it does happen.

I know a lot of people will let their pets go under without extensive pre-op bloodwork if the pet is “healthy” but I do not. Every time they go under, for any reason, I have bloodwork run to try to prevent a complication. Can’t prevent everything, but at least might catch some complications in advance.

[Garythesquirrel]

@millerra

puppy was about 9 months of age…

What breed?

[chaserider]

Lost our very first puppy (Pomeranian) to spay surgery. To make matters worse, the vet student (yes, it was at the local College of Vet Med) chose to tell me (a six-year-old) since I answered the phone that they “gave the puppy too much anesthesia and it died.” Traumatized me and was the first time I ever saw my father cry.

[millerra]

@Garythesquirrel

What breed?

terrier cross from humane society - cute as a bugs ear she was.

[animaldoc]

I think one thing people often forget is that a spay (ovariohysterectomy) might be the only major abdominal surgery that a pet has in their lifetime. The vast majority of healthy young pets that are spayed will do just fine, but that depends on multiple factors.

-A healthy patient. So this would be a patient with no detectable abnormalities. If young animals have something abnormal on physical examination/bloodwork, that should be explored further. Patients should be carefully asculted to see if there are any heart murmurs- which could be no big deal, or could be serious.

-The DVMs skill with anesthesia. There are a wide variety of anesthesia protocols out there and some are more up to date/safer than others. The best ones use a balanced protocol with analgesics/sedative, protect the airway and have a TRAINED person monitoring the patient closely (ie. NOT the DVM doing the surgery).

-The DVMs skill with surgery. Mistakes and poor technique are out there…not tying knots appropriately leads can lead to bleeding, carless surgical technique can cause kidney problems, etc.

-The owner’s compliance with postop instructions. There are lots of people that don’t put the e-collar on the dog, let it run, lick the incision, ect. which all lead to post op complications.

In the end, everything can be done right by all involved and then shit just happens. Thankfully that only occurs rarely (in people it’s about 1 in 100,000, and it’s about 1 in 1,000 in healthy dogs/cats (no one is completely sure why the difference in mortality exists, but it’s there). IME “heart failure” is a really odd reason for a postop death - were they able to get a necropsy (autopsy)?

[animaldoc]

And - I am SO sorry for their loss!

[JoZ]

Slight hijack but germane to the topic – many years ago it was common to do pre-anesthesia bloodwork IF the animal (in my case always a cat) was over the age of 7-8. Has that been reconsidered? The last cat I had spayed had bloodwork done without it even being mentioned, and I’m fine with that if it is an updated protocol. Most of my cats are of unknown history (same might be true of the OP’s friend’s pup) so they are a genetic question mark.

So sorry for your friend’s loss, @millera. And @chaserider what a sad story, who DOES that to a child? Ugh.