In a veterinary surgical room most spaying procedures take around five to 15 minutes to complete, it consists of different steps which are needed in order to complete the procedure correctly. The spaying procedure is what veterinaries do to prevent unwanted female animals, every year millions of cats and dogs, no matter age or breed are put down using euthanasia or left as strays. Stray animals are a real problem all over the country, they can cause car accidents, and damage our city or personal property and some of them can even frighten us or attack us is they feel threatened.
Spaying your female animal can lower these high numbers of unwanted litters or strays because she won’t go into heat after her surgery. Spaying not only prevents unwanted litters in your home or streets, it also helps prevent uterine infections and breast cancer. 50 percent of dogs and 90 percent of cats die because of breast cancer or uterine infections. Spaying is the surgical removal of the internal reproductive structures in a female animal, including her ovaries, fallopian tubes, uterine body.
Which basically means the female reproductive tract which is responsible for egg production; embryo and fetus development and the secretion of the major female hormones get removed. Most vets prefer to perform this surgery on females that are not in heat because the uterine horns become thicker than usual during this period of time. Before the veterinarian can begin the procedure, the female animal has to be fully unconscious so that she won’t move or feel any pain while the surgery is being done.
The animal is injected with a sedative and general anesthetic drugs to make it go to sleep. When the anesthesia has kicked in, an endotracheal tube is placed down its main airway to help it breathe and keep its airway clear of vomit or other secretions. The animal is now kept under anesthesia by adding anesthesia by adding anesthetic gas into the oxygen that it’s breathing. After the anesthesia, the veterinarian needs to make sure the surgical site is free of fur and scrubbed with an antiseptic before the surgery. This will minimize the bacterial contamination on the surgical site.
Once the surgical site has been cleared off, a sterile drape is placed 1 inch below the animal’s umbilical scar to focus the veterinary surgeons attention on the spay site. This drape also provides a sterile surface so the veterinarian can rest instruments during the surgery. Approximately 1 inch below the umbilical scar, a small incision, usually 1cm long is made on the animal’s skin.
The veterinary surgeon then removes aft, white tiny substance from the incision line region. A lot of fat is generally located between the animal’s skin and abdominal wall muscles. To allow easy access and visualization, the veterinarian will often cut small amounts of this fat. The veterinarian enters the abdominal cavity by cutting along a central line of scar tissue called the Linea Alba, or “white line”, this scar tissue holds the right and left sides of the animal’s abdominal wall together.
A spay hook is inserted into the animal’s abdominal cavity to draw up the first uterine horn. The blood vessels supplying the animal’s ovary are elevated and clamped using mosquito hemostats to crush and traumatize the ovarian blood vessels causing them to spasm and narrow in diameter, preventing excessive ovarian pedicle hemorrhage when the ovary is cut off. A stitch is also placed around the blood vessels to help prevent excessive hemorrhage. After the ligature has been tied and knotted, the ends are cut off leaving only a small knot.
The veterinarian uses a scalpel blade to cut through the ovarian pedicle, the cut is made above the hemostat clamp level so that the blood vessels will not bleed, but below the ovary so that the ovary will be removed from the pedicle once the cut has been made. The hemostats are still in place after the ovarian pedicle cut has been made. They will be removed to allow the ovarian pedicle to return to the abdomen. These same steps are repeated for the second uterine horn.
The two uterine horns are pulled towards the animal’s tail until the uterine body is elevated above the skin level. More hemostats are clamped on the uterine body below the uterine horns and above the cervix level. The cervix is a sphincter-like muscle band located between the abdominal located uterus and vagina. A suture is placed around the uterine body to close off the tunnel leading into the uterus from outside. This prevents bacteria from entering the abdominal cavity through the vagina once the uterus is removed.
It also helps block the uterine blood vessels, thereby stopping them from hemorrhaging once the uterine body has been cut off. The suture is tied around the uterine body and the ends are cut off to prevent irritation and inflammation inside and cause the organs to get stuck together by scar tissue. A second suture is placed around the uterine body for extra security. To complete the process of removing the uterus from the animal, the uterine body is cut off above the suture level.
The animal will no longer be able to reproduce since this is an irreversible surgical procedure. The surgeon uses absorbable suture material to close the hole in the linea Alba because it is made of collagen where it has led blood supply than red muscle which makes it longer to heal than muscle would. The subcutaneous fat layer, also called the SC layer is sutured closed. By closing this layer the surgeon reduces the amount of open space between the abdominal wall and skin layers; it also reduces the risk of a large, fluid filled swelling forming at the surgical site.
The surgeon closes the skin using non- absorbable skin sutures which will need to be removed 10- 14 days after the surgery. Your female animal is now spayed and unable to reproduce since this is an irreversible process. As I mentioned before, the spaying procedure is done between five to 15 minutes but consists of different steps to complete the procedure correctly. I have broken down the steps and given you directions on how to complete this procedure the right way.
It is very important to understand the steps in this procedure in order to prevent the incision from getting infected. Make sure the surgical site is free or fur and scrubbed down with an antiseptic before you make the incision. Being able to identify the tools needed and using them correctly is also very important in order to complete this procedure correctly. After this procedure is done, you will not have to worry about your female animal going into heat, calling males to your house and getting pregnant leaving you with unwanted litters and more pets than you can handle.